Omnivoropteryx
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| Omnivoropteryx sinousaorum Czerkas & Ji, 2002 |
Omnivoropteryx ("omnivorous wing") was a genus of primitive flying bird from the Early Cretaceous Upper Jiufotang Formation of China. The single species O. sinousaorum shows an interesting mix of specialized and generalized characters: the legs were short and well suited for perching on branches, while the wings were long, suggesting it did not need a running or jumping takoff to get into the air. Its skull, on the other hand, was similar to some early oviraptorosaurs, having the structure of a beak designed for crushing and tearing with some teeth at the tip of the upper jaw. Thus, the species may have been an opportunistic omnivore (as the name suggests), utilizing a wide range of food sources, unlike other early birds which were active predators of smaller animals.
This is one of the animals sometimes referred to as "dinobirds": taxa which cannot unequivocally placed into an avian or non-.avian theropod lineage; its relationship to Caudipteryx and the enigmatic Cryptovolans - which are generally considered non-avian - is not fully resolved (Czerkas & Ji 2002). In any case, this species and Sapeornis seem to form a clade, the Omnivoropterygiformes[citation needed].
[edit] References
- Czerkas, S. A. & Ji, Q. (2002): A preliminary report on an omnivorous volant bird from northeast China. In: Czerkas, S. J. (editor): Feathered Dinosaurs and the origin of flight. The Dinosaur Museum Journal 1: 127-135.
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