Anchiornis huxleyi

Anchiornis is a genus of small, four-winged paravian dinosaurs, with only one known species, the type species Anchiornis huxleyi, named for its similarity to modern birds. The Latin name Anchiornis derives from a Greek word meaning "near bird", and huxleyi refers to Thomas Henry Huxley, a contemporary of Charles Darwin. Anchiornis fossils have been found only in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China, in rocks dated to the Late Jurassic, about 160 million years ago. It is known from hundreds of specimens, and given the exquisite preservation of some of these fossils, it became the first Mesozoic dinosaur species for which almost the entire life appearance could be determined, and an important source of information on the early evolution of birds.

Anchiornis huxleyi

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AnchiornisPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Troodontidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Troodontidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Troodontidae

Time the record covers

At most 16 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 168.2 Mya and 152.21 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 2 of 3 occurrencesLate Jurassic169–168 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences164–164 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences164–163 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences162–162 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences161–161 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences161–160 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences160–160 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences160–159 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences159–159 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences159–158 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153–153 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences168.7 Mya151.7 Mya

3 occurrences of Anchiornis huxleyi on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Tiaojishan — 40.92°N, 119.65°ETiaojishan — 40.59°N, 119.43°ETiaojishan — 40.87°N, 119.99°E

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The named rock units Anchiornis huxleyi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Anchiornis huxleyi and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Anchiornis huxleyi and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

41 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Anchiornis huxleyi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Anchiornis huxleyi

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAnchiornis through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Xu et al. 2009