By Jack Wood on @thewoodparable
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Name: Liaoxiornis delicatus
Name Meaning: Liaoning Bird
Classification: Dinosauria, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostylia, Ornithothoraces, Enantiornithes
Liaoxiornis is a dinosaur named for a hathcling specimen, meaning that even though it’s known from an actually decent fossil, it probably shouldn’t be the basis of an entirely new genus, since it can’t be assigned confidently to an existing adult genus. It was found in the Yixian Formation, which of course complicates the issue, since so many birds are known from this location. It lived about 122 million years ago, in the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous. It had a large head and eyes, and an unfused skeleton, which further implicates it as an infant; even though it had mature flight feathers, this probably just means that it was superprecocial (like Gobipteryx) and was able to fly immediately after hatching. It was very small, touted as the “smallest” Mesozoic bird by the original authors, though of course this is rather redundant given that it is also a baby. Since it can’t be assigned to an adult, this taxon remains distinct, despite really not deserving it. Still, it’s cute at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaoxiornis
Hou, L., P. Chen. 1999. Liaoxiornis delicatus gen. et sp. nov., the smallest Mesozoic Bird. Chinese Science Bulletin 44 (9): 834 - 838.
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