Ornithurae

Ornithurae is a natural group that includes modern birds and their very close relatives such as the ichthyornithines and the hesperornithines. This clade is defined in the PhyloCode by Juan Benito and colleagues in 2022 as "the smallest clade containing Ichthyornis dispar, Hesperornis regalis, and Vultur gryphus."

Ornithurae

MCDinosaurhunter · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
OrnithuromorphaPBDB
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 least 165 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 1144 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 1144 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 12 of 1144 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 187 of 1144 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 1144 occurrencesEocene — about 30 of 1144 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 12 of 1144 occurrencesMiocene — about 85 of 1144 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 52 of 1144 occurrencesPleistocene — about 446 of 1144 occurrences172–166 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences166–160 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences149–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143–137 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences137–132 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–120 Mya — about 4 occurrences120–114 Mya — about 4 occurrences114–109 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences109–103 Mya — about 1 occurrence103–97 Mya — about 7 occurrences97–92 Mya — about 10 occurrences92–86 Mya — about 11 occurrences86–80 Mya — about 52 occurrences80–74 Mya — about 57 occurrences74–69 Mya — about 38 occurrences69–63 Mya — about 13 occurrences63–57 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences57–51 Mya — about 10 occurrences51–46 Mya — about 8 occurrences46–40 Mya — about 4 occurrences40–34 Mya — about 6 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 7 occurrences29–23 Mya — about 5 occurrences23–17 Mya — about 14 occurrences17–11 Mya — about 27 occurrences11–5.7 Mya — about 41 occurrences5.7–0 Mya — about 820 occurrences165.3 Mya11.7 ka172 Mya0 Mya

1,144 occurrences of Ornithurae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

1,144 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

129 formations

Pierre Shale — 49.18°N, 98.10°WPierre Shale — 49.22°N, 98.20°WPierre Shale — 49.14°N, 98.22°WPierre Shale — 49.33°N, 98.31°WVogel River Series — 3.20°S, 35.22°EVogel River Series — 3.01°S, 35.20°EVogel River Series — 3.25°S, 35.20°EVogel River Series — 3.23°S, 36.19°EVogel River Series — 3.13°S, 35.13°ENiobrara — 39.00°N, 101.00°WNiobrara — 39.35°N, 99.88°WNiobrara — 39.57°N, 99.30°WNiobrara — 38.75°N, 101.05°WNiobrara — 38.92°N, 101.77°WNiobrara — 38.92°N, 101.18°WNiobrara — 38.78°N, 100.93°WNiobrara — 38.75°N, 100.21°WNiobrara — 38.87°N, 100.82°WNiobrara — 38.91°N, 101.27°WNiobrara — 38.77°N, 100.77°WNiobrara — 38.85°N, 100.17°WNiobrara — 38.60°N, 96.05°WNiobrara — 38.47°N, 100.47°WDinosaur Park — 49.12°N, 110.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.73°N, 111.30°WDinosaur Park — 49.96°N, 110.27°WDinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.63°WDinosaur Park — 50.68°N, 108.09°WMooreville Chalk — 32.76°N, 88.02°WMooreville Chalk — 32.92°N, 88.07°WMooreville Chalk — 32.42°N, 87.20°WMooreville Chalk — 32.40°N, 87.14°WMooreville Chalk — 32.97°N, 88.04°WMooreville Chalk — 33.25°N, 88.16°WMooreville Chalk — 32.82°N, 88.05°Wfacies à Congeria — 45.05°N, 7.93°EHell Creek — 45.95°N, 103.96°WHell Creek — 46.03°N, 103.77°WHell Creek — 46.33°N, 103.90°WHell Creek — 46.46°N, 104.00°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 45.40°N, 103.65°WJiufotang — 41.42°N, 120.18°EJiufotang — 41.57°N, 120.47°EJiufotang — 41.49°N, 120.23°EJiufotang — 43.64°N, 120.43°EJiufotang — 40.81°N, 119.80°EJiufotang — 41.53°N, 121.25°ELondon Clay — 51.39°N, 0.84°ELondon Clay — 51.64°N, 0.78°ELondon Clay — 51.85°N, 1.28°EBelle Fourche — 53.21°N, 103.52°WNubia — 16.25°N, 33.75°EKanguk — 79.75°N, 85.60°WKanguk — 73.50°N, 79.00°WKanguk — 76.28°N, 91.20°WKanguk — 79.39°N, 92.18°WPierre Shale — 44.00°N, 103.25°WPierre Shale — 43.07°N, 103.53°WPierre Shale — 43.01°N, 103.30°WPierre Shale — 43.58°N, 103.20°WSwartkrans — 26.02°S, 27.72°EVarswater — 32.98°S, 18.15°EVarswater — 33.67°S, 18.43°EBissekty — 42.12°N, 62.66°EPungo River — 35.40°N, 76.80°WNaran Bulak — 44.62°N, 106.18°ENaran Bulak — 43.47°N, 100.37°ERybushka — 44.68°N, 39.08°ERybushka — 51.25°N, 45.36°EBatesland — 43.13°N, 101.87°WEdelény — 48.39°N, 20.64°EAshville — 53.48°N, 102.24°WKromdraai — 26.00°S, 27.75°EXiacaowan — 33.45°N, 118.20°E

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The named rock units Ornithurae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 105 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 825 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ornithurae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ornithurae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

4,314 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 755 sites for Ornithurae, and this reads 240 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

423 references

Each of the 1,144 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. 411 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ornithurae

Credit
MCDinosaurhunter
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ornithurae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itOrnithuromorpha through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Haeckel 1866)