''Orientornis'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species of

ratite A ratite () is any of a diverse group of flightless, large, long-necked, and long-legged birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae. Kiwi, the exception, are much smaller and shorter-legged and are the only nocturnal extant ratites. The systematics ...

from the Miocene of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Description

Remains of a pelvis, including a

synsacrum The synsacrum is a skeletal structure of birds and other dinosaurs, in which the sacrum is extended by incorporation of additional fused or partially fused caudal or lumbar vertebrae and it can only be seen in birds. Some posterior thoracic vert ...

, were recovered from

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

in the

Linxia Basin Línxià (), the toponym for a number a places in Gansu, China formerly known as Hezhou, refers to: *Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture () **Linxia City (), county-level city in Linxia Prefecture **Linxia County Linxia County (, Xiao'erjing: ) is ...

, Guanghe County,

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

, northwest

. Based on the size of these remains, it is believed to have been slightly larger than '' Struthio camelus''. When this bird lived, the area is believed to have been either open grasslands or wetlands.

Taxonomy

''Orientornis'' was originally named as a species of ''Struthio'', ''S. linxiaensis'', by Hou et al. (2005). However, Wang (2008) placed the taxon in its own genus, ''Orientornis''.Wang S. 2008. Rediscussion in the taxonomic assignment of ''Struthio linxiaensis'' Hou, et al., 2005. ''Acta Paleotologica Sinica'' 47:362–368.

Footnotes

References

* Miocene birds Extinct flightless birds Struthioniformes Neogene birds of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2008 {{paleo-bird-stub