Sapeornis chaoyangensis

Uncredited · 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
- SapeornisPBDB
- 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 13 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 113.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Sapeornis chaoyangensis on record, most of them in the Early 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
6 occurrences- Early 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
2 formations
- Jiufotang Formation · Jehol Group4
- Yixian Formation · Jehol Group2
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The named rock units Sapeornis chaoyangensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Sapeornis chaoyangensis and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Sapeornis chaoyangensis and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
37 taxa- Confuciusornis2 sites
- Enantiornithes2 sites
- Aberratiodontus wui1 site
- Dapingfangornis sentisorhinus1 site
- Gretcheniao sinensis1 site
- Hongshanopterus lacustris1 site
- Huoshanornis huji1 site
- Hyphalosaurus baitaigouensis1 site
- Istiodactylus sinensis1 site
- Jeholornis prima1 site
- Jianianhualong tengi1 site
- Jinanichthys1 site
- Jinzhousaurus yangi1 site
- Jixiangornis orientalis1 site
- Lactodens sheni1 site
- Longdeichthys1 site
- Longipteryx1 site
- Microraptor1 site
- Microraptor gui1 site
- Microraptor zhaoianus1 site
- Monjurosuchus splendens1 site
- Musivavis amabilis1 site
- Neimengornis rectusmim1 site
- Omnivoropteryx sinousaorum1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Sapeornis chaoyangensis, 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
6 references- A subadult specimen of the Early Cretaceous bird Sapeornis chaoyangensis and a taxonomic reassessment of sapeornithids1
- A new sapeornithid bird from China and its implication for early avian evolution1
- A new species of the basal bird Sapeornis from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning, China1
- A new genus and species of Sapeornithidae from Lower Cretaceous in western Liaoning, China1
- Anatomy of the primitive bird Sapeornis chaoyangensis from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning, China1
- Largest bird from the Early Cretaceous and its implications for the earliest avian ecological diversification1
Each of the 6 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. 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 Sapeornis chaoyangensis
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Sapeornis chaoyangensis was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSapeornis through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zhou and Zhang 2002