''Gallornis'' is a genus of prehistoric birds from the Cretaceous. The single known species ''Gallornis straeleni'' lived near today's Auxerre in Yonne ''département'' ( France); it has been dated very tentatively to the Berriasian- Hauterivian stages, that is about 140–130 million years ago. The known fossil material consists of a worn partial femur and a fragment of the

humerus The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...

.Hope, Sylvia (2002): The Mesozoic radiation of Neornithes. ''In:'' Chiappe, Luis M. & Witmer, Lawrence M. (eds.): Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs: 339-388. This is a highly significant taxon for theories about the evolution of birds. It is not known from much or well-preserved material. It has been proposed that the remains show features only known from the Neornithes – the group of birds that exists today. Thus, the ''Gallornis'' fossils suggest that as early as about 130 million years ago or more the ancestors of all living birds might already have been an evolutionary lineage distinct from the closely related Hesperornithes and Ichthyornithes (essentially modern birds retaining some more ancient features like teeth) and the more distantly related

Enantiornithes The Enantiornithes, also known as enantiornithines or enantiornitheans in literature, are a group of extinct avialans ("birds" in the broad sense), the most abundant and diverse group known from the Mesozoic era. Almost all retained teeth and cla ...

(a group of more primitive toothed birds which were the most successful avians in the Mesozoic).

Ecology

During the time of ''Gallornis'', its range was located around 30°N, north of the Tropic of Cancer aridity belt. However, the Cretaceous was a hot and humid age in general, so the habitat might have more resembled West Africa around the Gulf of Guinea. Higher

sealevel Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

s had large parts of Europe submerged for much of the time, and Southeast Europe and Asia Minor had not even attached to that continent yet (see also Haţeg Island, Haţeg Basin). The Alpide orogeny (the uplift of the Eurasian

latitudinal In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

mountain belt) had not even gotten underway. ''Gallornis'' was a contemporary of many (non- avian) dinosaurs living around the (Second) Tethys Sea. In the archipelago that was then Europe, huge

sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their bo ...

s appear to have been the dominant

herbivore A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

s. Apart from some early birds, pterosaurs roamed the skies of the European microcontinents, (more abundant and diverse than the few bird species), while semi-aquatic

crocodylomorph Crocodylomorpha is a group of pseudosuchian archosaurs that includes the crocodilians and their extinct relatives. They were the only members of Pseudosuchia to survive the end-Triassic extinction. During Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times, cro ...

s (e.g. ''

Goniopholis ''Goniopholis'' (meaning "angled scale") is an extinct genus of goniopholidid crocodyliform that lived in Europe and Africa during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Being semi-aquatic it is very similar to modern crocodiles. It ranged from ...

'', '' Pholidosaurus'', '' Vectisuchus'') and marine thalattosuchians were common.

Stegosaur Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, predominantly in what is now North America, Europe, ...

s were apparently rare (e.g. ''

Regnosaurus northamptoni ''Regnosaurus'' (meaning "Sussex lizard") is a genus of herbivorous stegosaurian dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period in what is now England. It was one of the first stegosaurs disvovered. Discovery and species The fossil r ...

''). Theropods like ''

Concavenator ''Concavenator'' is an extinct genus of theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 130 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period (Barremian age). The type species is ''C. corcovatus''; ''Concavenator corcovatus'' means " Cuenca hunter ...

'' and '' Baryonyx'' may have existed alongside it as well.

Classification

As it is so close to the common origin of all living birds, ''Gallornis'' cannot be assigned to any living family and probably not even to any extant

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

. It was allied with the Paleocene ''

Scaniornis ''Scaniornis'' is a prehistoric bird genus. The only known species, ''Scaniornis lundgreni'', lived in the MP 1–5 (Early Paleocene, perhaps Middle Paleocene: c. 65–59 million years ago). It is known from a partial fossil skeleton of a righ ...

'', a probable waterbird that is sometimes allied with flamingos (which may or may not be correct and altogether is not too unlikely) to form the supposed "proto-flamingo" family Scaniornithidae or " Torotigidae" ''sensu'' Brodkorb.Brodkorb, Pierce (1963): Catalogue of fossil birds. Part 1 (Archaeopterygiformes through Ardeiformes). ''Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences'' 7(4): 179-293
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However, the difference in age alone virtually rules out a close relationship between these two, and the early age of the ''Gallornis'' fossils makes it highly unlikely that this taxon was allied to the flamingos. A more probable hypothesis, echoing the initial description of 1931, is that ''Gallornis'' was an early member of the Galloanserae, the

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

that eventually brought forth the Galliformes (landfowl) and

Anseriformes Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which in ...

(waterfowl) of our time. With the remains at hand, however, it cannot even be reliably determined whether ''Gallornis'' was a paleognath or a neognath. Though the material is almost beyond recognition, a few features of the femur are still recognizable. In general shape it resembles the Neornithes. Notably, the lateral trochanteric crest is elevated over a large antitrochanteric facet, and somewhat recurved over it. The elevated lateral trochanteric crest is an autapomorphic feature of and plesiomorphic among Neornithes, as far as is known. It is widespread in the most ancient lineages of these, such as tinamous, Galloanserae, shorebirds and seabirds, and changed fundamentally again especially in later landbird lineages.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q12631348 Bird genera Cretaceous birds of Europe Prehistoric ornithurans Taxa named by Kálmán Lambrecht