A new advanced ornithuromorph bird from Inner Mongolia documents the northernmost geographic distribution of the Jehol paleornithofauna in China

ABSTRACT

We describe a new taxon of advanced ornithuromorph bird, Khinganornis hulunbuirensis gen. et sp. nov., from the previously unreported Pigeon Hill locality of the Lower Cretaceous Longjiang Formation in the northern Greater Khingan Range area of Inner Mongolia, China. A cladistics analysis resolves K. hulunbuirensis as the sister group of a clade formed by Changzuiornis and Iteravis among ornithuromorphs. The osteohistological analysis indicates that K. hulunbuirensis is the first ornithuromorph that maintained an uninterrupted growth during a longer period characterised by slow deposition of low-vascularised and terminal avascular bone tissue. The relatively long hindlimbs and elongate pedal digits with long proximal phalanges suggest a wading and amphibious ecology for the new bird. The discovery of K. hulunbuirensis represents the first occurrence of Jehol birds in the Greater Khingan Range and documents the northernmost known geographic distribution of the celebrated avifauna in China. The new record implies more extended palaeogeographic range for the early diversification of Mesozoic birds on the eastern side of Laurasia.

KEYWORDS:

• Early Cretaceous
• Longjiang formation
• Jehol Biota
• Ornithuromorpha
• growth strategy

Nomenclatural Act

The electronic version of this article in portable document format will represent a published work according to the ICZN, and hence the new names contained in the electronic version are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN. The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix http://zoobank.org/.

This publication LSID:

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1F2076F2-DCFD-49A4-8D4F-C5374ADD24D7.

Genus name Khinganornis LSID:

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:F98FE5A0-CD05-46F0-B882-1B18B59EB21E.

Species name Khinganornis hulunbuirensis LSID:

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:04899C4F-2B3D-4C49-B073-1D5CE04D5DDF.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mr. Cui Guihai for preparing the specimens. We also thank Wensheng Wu and Zhiguang Li for their assistance during the study in Hebei GEO University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants [41872018; 41672019]; the China Geological Survey under Grant [DD20190602]; the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Grant [APVV-18-0251]; the Science Grant Agency VEGA of the Slovak Ministry of the Education, Science, Research and Sport of Slovak Academy of Sciences under Grant [1/0853/17].