''Juehuaornis'' 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, ''J. zhangi''.

Discovery and naming

The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

, SJG 00001, was found near Lingyuan 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. The counterplate was designated as the

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). O ...

with inventory number SJG 00001A. In 2015 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 ...

''Juehuaornis zhangi'' was named and described by Wang Ren-fe, Wang Yan and Hu Dongyu. The generic name combines a reference to the island of Juehua, the "'' Chrysanthemum'' Island" off the coast of Liaoning, with a Greek ὄρνις, ''ornis'', "bird". The specific name honours curator Zhang Dayong.

Description

''Juehuaornis'' has a long beak which reaches 70% of the total skull length.

Classification

''Juehuaornis'' was placed in the Ornithuromorpha in 2015. In 2016 it was suggested that ''Juehuaornis'' might be cogeneric to the closely related genera '' Changzuiornis'' and ''

Dingavis ''Dingavis'' is an extinct genus of ornithuromorph bird from the Early Cretaceous of present-day China. It contains a single species, ''D. longimaxilla''. Discovery and naming At Sihedang in Liaoning a fossil bird skeleton was excavated. Ca ...

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

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21008924 Early Cretaceous birds of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2017 Prehistoric euornitheans