Time and Place: 120 million years ago, in the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous
Piscivoravis is known from the Shangheshou Beds of the Jiufotang Formation in Liaoning, China
Physical Description: Piscivoravis was a fairly large proto-bird, growing between 30 and 35 centimeters long. It had a strong wishbone, which would have allowed for extensive chest muscles, giving it better flight ability than most of its relatives at the time. It had large claws and digits on its feet and hands which would have been very noticeable in the wings - it’s possible it may have used those claws to cling to branches and tree trunks. Piscivoravis was preserved with feathers, which show that it had an alula. Alulas are a group of three to six small, stiff feathers growing off of the first digit in modern birds - not preserved often in Mesozoic birds, scientists have limited themselves to looking for the specialized structure in the first finger that would indicate their presence. However, Piscivoravis doesn’t have that structure - indicating the alula feathers evolved before the structure did. It also had a full fan of tail feathers - a distinctive trait of the birdie dinosaurs that would become birds proper. The feathers were broad and rounded to form a single aerodynamic surface, which would have helped it to fly.
Diet: Piscivoravis was found with fish preserved in its digestive tract, making it one of the few confirmed piscivorous Mesozoic birds.
Behavior: Piscivoravis would spend a lot of its time around the lakes of its environment, grabbing fish out of the water - a unique niche for it that would have helped it to avoid competition with other animals in its very diverse environment. It would have swallowed the food and separated it into digestible parts and non-digestible parts, and formed the latter into a pellet - much like modern hawks and owls do. This was preserved in its stomach, and it would then vomit up the pellet to save energy trying (and failing) to digest it.
By Scott Reid
As a strong flier, it’s possible that Piscivoravis would source over the lakes like some shorebirds today, looking for traces of fish and other aquatic sources of food under the surface. We don’t know how well it could see, however, to test if it would be able to spot such prey. It’s possible - since this was a system of lakes surrounded by forest - that Piscivoravis may have peered down at the lakes from trees (held onto with strong claws), then used their strong flight to fly down quickly towards the sources of food.
As a dinosaur, Piscivoravis most likely took care of its young, though it’s difficult to know either way without more fossils. It is uncertain whether or not it would have lived in groups - either possibility, solitary or social life, seems possible.
Ecosystem: Piscivoravis lived in the Jiufotang Formation, the later of the Jehol Biota formations that showcase the initial evolution of a lot of modern groups - especially birds, placental mammals, and flowers. It was a system of lakes, surrounded by a temperate forest. Active volcanoes nearby would explode on occasion, leading to rapid covering and then preservation of the life in the forest. The earlier Yixian Formation is somewhat better known and more diverse than the Jiufotang, but there was still a lot of fascinating creatures in the Jiufotang. Piscivoravis is known from the Shangheshou Bed, aka the second and third members of the formation, where a lot of the more famous animals of the environment are found. The environment was probably still heavily forested, mostly populated with coniferous trees and ferns, but with some burgeoning flowers as well. There was a variety of frogs and fish for Piscivoravis to feed on, though most of the named ones come from other parts of the formation.
Mammals were present in the formation - notably Lactodens and Liaconodon. The oddball, crocodile-esque Choristoderes were represented by Philydrosaurus and Ikechosaurus. Turtles include Perochelys and Liaochelys. There was the famed Jiufotang Lizard Yabeinosaurus as well. There were a lot of pterosaurs, including Sinopterus, Linlongopterus, Liaoxipterus, Chaoyangopterus, Longchengpterus, Eoazhdarcho, Huaxiapterus, Hongshanopterus, Jidapterus, and Shenzhoupterus. And this was just the non-dinosaurs.
By José Carlos Cortés
Dinosaurs included - well, there were a lot of them. The only Ornithischian known from this member was Psittacosaurus. There were a few non-Avialan theropods, too, such as Sinotyrannus, Microraptor and Similcaudipteryx. Still, the fast majority of dinosaurs present were birdie dinosaurs, which I’m just going to list now: Longipteryx, Confuciusornis, Omnivoropteryx, Sapeornis, Sinornis, Yixianornis, Bohaiornis, Parabohaiornis, Longusunguis, Juehuaornis, Parapengornis, Fortunguavis, Cathayornis, Largirostrornis, Yanornis, Gracilornis, Eocathayornis, Jeholornis, Schizooura, Zhongjianornis, Jianchangornis, Archaeorhynchus, Songlingornis, Chaoyangia, Longchengornis, Boluochia, Houornis, Xiangornis, Huoshanornis, Pengornis, Dapingfangornis, Piscivorenantiornis, Parahongshanornis, Alethoalaornis, Yuanjiawaornis, and Bellulornis. Feel free to dig through the ADAD blog to find out about all of these. Piscivoravis probably would have feared Sinotyrannus the most out of all these members of its environment, in terms of what would eat it.
Other: Piscivoravis was a Songlingornithid, a group of early very-near-birds found in the Aptian age of China. Many other kinds coexisted with Piscivoravis, and surprisingly, a lot of the group of birdie dinosaurs that became birds (the Euornithes) had at least somewhat aquatic lifestyles. So, full beaks in modern birds evolved in water-based environments, though we’re not entirely sure why.
~ By Meig Dickson
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Piscivoravis is a fish-eating Songlingornithid (a small group of Euornithines from the Early Cretaceous), preserved with fish in its digestive tract, making it one of the few confirmed piscivorous Mesozoic birds. It lived approximately 120 million years ago, in the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous, and it lived in the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, China. Piscivoravis was a larger bird, somewhere between 30 and 35 centimeters in body length, similar in size to such birds as Schizooura and Jianchangornis. It had a very strong wishbone, meaning that muslces could have attached to it extensively, giving it a better flight ability than more early derived Ornithothoraceans. It did, however, have large claws and digits, compared to other Ornithuromorphs, which have tiny claws, however it does have a specialized finger for flight like in other Ornithurmorphs. It had an alula - the group of three to six small stiff feathers growing off of the first digit in modern birds - which is not preserved frequently in Mesozoic birds, indicating that this structure actually appeared in Mesozoic birds before the digit that would one day evolve to support it in the line to modern birds. It had a fan of tail feathers (rectrices) which were broad and rounded, forming a single aerodynamic surface, further indicating that it was well adapted for flight. As a fish eater in a very bird-heavy environment, it would have thus been able to carve out its own distinct niche, not facing much competition with other dinosaurs in feeding on fish in the environment. In fact, its stomach contents are even more interesting in that it has a pellet in the stomach, much like modern birds of prey such as hawks and owls do, allowing it to pass out undigestible material from its body. It probably lived near the lakes, feeding mainly (if not entirely) on fish.
Source:
Zhou, S., Z. Zhou, J. K. O’Connor. 2013. A new piscivorous ornithuromorph from the Jehol Biota. Historical Biology 26 (5): 608 - 618.
