''Neuquenornis volans''Chiappe, Luis M.,Calvo, Jorge O. (1994) "Neuquenornis volans, a New Late Cretaceous Bird (Enantiornithes: Avisauridae) from Patagonia, Argentina""Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology" Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun. 22, 1994), pp. 230-246 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4523563 is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

enantiornithean 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 ...

birds which lived during the late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

period in today's

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. It is the only known species of the

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 ...

''Neuquenornis''. Its fossils were found in the

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya (million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 mya. ...

Bajo de la Carpa Formation The Bajo de la Carpa Formation is a geologic formation of the Neuquén Basin that crops out in northern Patagonia, in the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, Argentina. It is the oldest of two formations belonging to the Río Colorado Subgr ...

, dating from about 85-83 million years ago. This was a sizeable bird for its time, with a tarsometatarsus 46.8mm long. Informal estimates suggest that it measured nearly 30 cm (12 in) in length excluding the tai

Etymology

The naming means "Flying bird from Neuquén Province". ''Neuquenornis'', from Neuquén Province +

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''ornis'' (όρνις) "bird". ''volans'',

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 ...

for "flying" in reference to the species' well-developed wing skeleton.

Description

''N. volans'' was described by Chiappe and Calvo in 1994. It was also mentioned in previous papers by Chiappe, but named only by its catalog number. 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 ...

fossil is catalogued as MUCPv-142. It is in the collection of the Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Neuquen, Argentina. MUCPv-142, a skull and a partial postcranial remains, indicates an animal with a length of , hip height of , and weight of .

Phylogeny

Chiappe and Calvo (1994) placed ''N. volans'' in the

Family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Avisauridae, near '' Avisaurus'' in the Enantiornithiformes. A more recent, unpublished, unreviewed, analysis that includes many newly described Enantiornithes finds it closer to '' Concornis'' and ''

Cathayornis ''Cathayornis'' is a genus of enantiornithean birds from the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, People's Republic of China. It is known definitively from only one species, ''Cathayornis yandica'', one of the first Enantiornithes found in China. Se ...

'' (or ''Sinornis''). The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

below is from Wang ''et al.'', 2015: The cladogram below is from Wang ''et al.'', 2022: Key to letters: ''b'' = '' Boluochia''
''c'' = ''

''
''e'' = '' Enantiophoenix''
''f'' = '' Houornis''
''h'' = ''

Longipteryx ''Longipteryx'' is a genus of prehistoric bird which lived during the Early Cretaceous ( Aptian stage, 120.3 million years ago). It contains a single species, ''Longipteryx chaoyangensis''. Its remains have been recovered from the Jiufotang Form ...

''
''i'' = '' Parabohaiornis''
''j'' = '' Pterygornis''
''l'' = ''

Vorona ''Vorona'' ( ; Malagasy for "bird", ''V. berivotrensis'', "from Berivotra") is a monotypic genus of prehistoric birds. It was described from fossils found in a Maevarano Formation quarry near the village of Berivotra, Mahajanga Province, Madag ...

''
''m'' = '' Yuanjiawaornis''
''n'' = '' Yungavolucris''

Paleobiology

Long legs with hooked claws were well suited for perching as well as for пathering food on ground or shallow water. A nesting colony has been attributed to this bird, showcasing that it display

megapode The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large, chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae. Their name literally means "large foot" and is a reference to the heavy legs ...

-like egg burial behaviour.Fernández, Mariela S.; García, Rodolfo A.; Fiorelli, Lucas; Scolaro, Alejandro; Salvador, Rodrigo B.; Cotaro, Carlos N.; Kaiser, Gary W.; Dyke, Gareth J. (2013). "A Large Accumulation of Avian Eggs from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia (Argentina) Reveals a Novel Nesting Strategy in Mesozoic Birds". PLoS ONE. 8 (4): e61030. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061030. PMC 3629076 Freely accessible. .

Etymology

Description

Phylogeny

Paleobiology

References

Further reading