''Pengornis'' is the largest known enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of northeast China. The name derives from "Peng", which refers to a mythological bird from Chinese folklore, and "-ornis", which means bird in Greek. ''Pengornis'' is known from a single adult fossil, described by Zhou et al. in 2008. This

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 ...

is in the collection of the

Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP; ) of China is a research institution and collections repository for fossils, including many dinosaur and pterosaur specimens (many from the Yixian Formation). As its name sugges ...

in Beijing China. Its accession number is IVPP V15336. It was collected from 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 ...

, at Dapingfang, Chaoyang, Liaoning China. A second, juvenile specimen was described by Hu, Zhou, and O'Connor in 2014.Hu, H. ''et al''. (2014) A subadult specimen of ''Pengornis'' and character evolution in Enantiornithes. ''Vertebrata PalAsiatica''. 52: 77–97. ''Pengornis'' shows characters of the humeral head, acromion, and anterior cervical vertebrae, that were previously known only in members of the Ornithurae. A phylogenetic analysis by Zhou et al. reduces to just three the number of characters that support enantiornithine monophyly. Thus, Pengornis supports the possibility that enantiornithines and Ornithurines may not be distinct clades.Zhou, Z. ''et al''. (2008) Insight into diversity, body size and morphological evolution from the largest Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird. ''Journal of Anatomy'', 212, pp565–577.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q14947755 Bird genera Early Cretaceous birds of Asia Enantiornitheans Fossil taxa described in 2008