Elbretornis
Elbretornis is an extinct genus of enantiornithine which existed in what is now Salta Province, Argentina during the late Cretaceous period.

Eogriel · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/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
- EuenantiornithesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 6.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Elbretornis on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
2 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
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
- Lecho Formation · Salta Group2
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Elbretornis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Elbretornis and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Elbretornis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
17 taxa- Crocodylia1 site
- Enantiornis1 site
- Enantiornis leali1 site
- Euenantiornithes1 site
- Lectavis bretincola1 site
- Martinavis1 site
- Martinavis minor1 site
- Martinavis saltariensis1 site
- Martinavis vincei1 site
- Martinavis whetstonei1 site
- Neuquensaurus australis1 site
- Noasaurus leali1 site
- Oviraptorosauria1 site
- Saltasaurus loricatus1 site
- Soroavisaurus australis1 site
- Theropoda1 site
- Yungavolucris brevipedalis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Elbretornis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 2 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 content1

Picture of Elbretornis
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Eogriel
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Elbretornis”
- 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 itEuenantiornithes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walker and Dyke 2009