Confuciusornithidae

Confuciusornithids Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 131–120 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Fossil specimen of Confuciusornis sanctus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Apomorphy:	Avebrevicauda
Node:	Pygostylia
Order:	†Confuciusornithiformes Hou et al., 1995
Family:	†Confuciusornithidae Hou et al., 1995
Type species
Confuciusornis sanctus Hou et al., 1995
Genera
†Changchengornis †Confuciusornis †Eoconfuciusornis †Jinzhouornis

Confuciusornithidae is a family of primitive birds from the early Cretaceous Period of China. It consists of four genera. About half of all the confuciusornithid specimens, including reprersentatives of all species, that have preserved feathers possess a pair of distinctive ribbon-like tail feathers, and possessed both shafted and non-shafted (downy) feathers.

Taxonomy

Size of different genera, compared to a human.

The family Confuciusornithidae was first named by Hou et al. in 1995 to contain the type genus, Confuciusornis, and assigned to the order Confuciusornithiformes within class Aves. The group was given a phylogenetic definition by Chiappe, in 1999, who defined a node-based clade Confuciusornithidae to include only Changchengornis and Confuciusornis. Sereno expanded this definition to include all species closer to Confuciusornis sanctus than to the modern House Sparrow, Passer domesticus. Jinzhouornis was added to the Confuciusornithidae by Hou, Zhou, and Zhang in 2002,, and in 2008, Zhang, Zhou and Benton assigned the newly described genus Eoconfuciusornis to the family.

There are four genera and seven known species:

• Changchengornis
  • Changchengornis hengdaoziensis
• Confuciusornis
  • Confuciusornis sanctus
  • Confuciusornis dui
  • Confuciusornis feducciai
  • Confuciusornis jianchangensis
• Eoconfuciusornis
  • Eoconfuciusornis zhengi
• Jinzhouornis
  • Jingzhouornis yixianensis
  • Jingzhouornis zhangjiyingia

Most confuciusornithids are known from the upper Jehol group, the Yixian Formation and Jiufotang Formation formation, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago. E. zhengi, however, predated the other confuciusornithids by 6 million years, dating to 131 Ma ago.

References

• Chiappe, Luis M.; Shu-An, Ji; Qiang, Ji; Norell, Mark A. (1999). "Anatomy and systematics of the Confuciusornithidae (Theropoda:Aves) from the Late Mesozoic of northeastern China". Bulletin of the American museum of Natural History 242. 
• Hou, L.; Zhou, Z.; Gu, Y.; Zhang, H. (1995). "Description of Confuciusornis sanctus". Chinese Science Bulletin 10: 61–63. 
• Hou, L. H.; Zhou, Z. H.; Zhang, F. C. (2002) Mesozoic Birds from Western Liaoning in China Shenyang, China: Liaoning Science and Technology Publishing House 
• Sereno, P. C. (2005). "Stem Archosauria—TaxonSearch". http://www.taxonsearch.org/Archive/stem-archosauria-1.0.php. Retrieved 07 Jul 2009. 
• Zhang, F. -C.; Zhou, Z. -H.; Benton, M. J. (2008). "A primitive confuciusornithid bird from China and its implications for early avian flight.". Science in China Series D: Earth Sciences 51 (5): 625–639. doi:10.1007/s11430-008-0050-3.