''Changzuiornis'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

ornithuromorph Euornithes (from Greek ' meaning "true birds") is a natural group which includes the most recent common ancestor of all avialans closer to modern birds than to ''Sinornis''. Description Clarke ''et al''. (2006) found that the most primitive know ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

from the Early Cretaceous of present-day China. It contains a single species, ''C. ahgmi''.

Discovery and naming

At Sihedang near Lingyuan in Liaoning, a bird skeleton was excavated which was acquired by the ''Anhui Gushengwu Bowugan'', the paleontological museum of

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

. In 2016 the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

''Changzuiornis ahgmi'' was named and described by Huang Jiandong, Wang Xia, Hu Yuanchao, Liu Jia, Jennifer A. Peteya and Julia A. Clarke. The generic name combines the Chinese ''chángzuì'', "the longest", a reference to the long beak, with a Greek ὄρνις, ''ornis'', "bird". The specific name is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

genitive of the

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

AHGM, the Anhui Geological Museum. The holotype, AGB5840, was found in a layer of the

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation ( Chinese: 九佛堂组, pinyin: ''jiǔfótáng zǔ'') is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see ...

dating from the Aptian. It consists of an almost complete and associated skeleton with skull, compressed on a plate. It preserves feather remains and

gastrolith A gastrolith, also called a stomach stone or gizzard stone, is a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract. Gastroliths in some species are retained in the muscular gizzard and used to grind food in animals lacking suitable grinding teeth. In oth ...

s. It represents an adult individual.

Description

''Changzuiornis'' has a long beak which reaches 68% of the total skull length.

Classification

''Changzuiornis'' was placed in the Ornithurae. The describers suggested that ''Changzuiornis'' might be cogeneric to the closely related ''

Juehuaornis ''Juehuaornis'' is an extinct genus of ornithuromorph bird from the Early Cretaceous of present-day China. It contains a single species, ''J. zhangi''. Discovery and naming The holotype, SJG 00001, was found near Lingyuan in a layer of the J ...

'' found in the same formation, in which case the latter genus would have priority.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q43323396 Prehistoric euornitheans Fossil taxa described in 2016