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Abitusavis

Say it: a-BIT-yoo-SAY-vis
Name means: “wandering bird”1
Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Abitusavis was a small, toothed bird that lived in what is now China during the Early Cretaceous. It had a long snout full of teeth and probably ate fish and other small animals.21

Lived
126 to 120 million years ago3
Early Cretaceous
Fossils found in
Shifo, Ningcheng, Nei Mongol, China (Yixian Formation)32
Length
0.2 to 0.3 m (0.7 to 1 ft)2
estimated from a nearly complete skeleton
Height
0.14 m (0.5 ft)
estimate
Top speed
about 28 km/h (17 mph)
Flying, estimate

When did it live?

Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

Abitusavis about 0.3 m long (1 ft)A house cat about 0.5 m (1.6 ft)A dog about 1 m (3.3 ft)A bicycle about 1.8 m (5.9 ft)

How tall was it?

Abitusavisabout 0.14 m tall (0.5 ft)A house catabout 0.3 m (1 ft)A dogabout 0.6 m (2 ft)🚪A doorabout 2 m (6.6 ft)

estimate

as long as 9 toy building bricks in a rowsmall enough to walk under a chaircould fly across a whole football pitch in 14 seconds

How big was Abitusavis compared to YOU?

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How fast was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Abitusavis belongs to a group called Yanornithidae, which includes some of the oldest birds that ate fish.1

2

Its name means 'wandering bird' in Latin.1

3

Abitusavis lived between about 125 and 119 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous.2

4

The only known fossil of Abitusavis is a nearly complete skeleton found in the Jehol Biota of China.31

5

It had a long snout packed with many teeth, which helped it catch slippery prey like fish.1

6

Abitusavis was a ground-dwelling bird that could also fly.2

AI-madeAI-made picture of Abitusavis
An AI-made picture of how Abitusavis might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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Scientific name
Abitusavis
Named by
Wang et al. 20203
Group
Early birds
Family / clade
Yanornithidae3
Classification
Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks
126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)3
Rock formations
Yixian3
Countries
China3
Fossil records
1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery
Abitusavis was named by Wang Min and colleagues in 2020 based on a nearly complete skeleton (IVPP V14606) from the Yixian Formation in China.32

Where the facts come from

  1. Two new Early Cretaceous ornithuromorph birds provide insights into the taxonomy and divergence of Yanornithidae (Aves: Ornithothoraces) (tandfonline.com)
  2. PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
  3. Abitusavis in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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More from the same group: Early birds

ArchaeopteryxEarly birdsHesperornisEarly birdsIchthyornisEarly birdsBaptornisEarly birdsJurapteryxEarly birdsGobipteryxEarly birds

Also from the same time: Early Cretaceous

StegosaurusPlated dinosIguanodonBeaked plant-eatersGiganotosaurusMeat-eating dinosMicroraptorRaptorsDeinonychusRaptorsBaryonyxSpinosaurs
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