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| Juvenile birds from the early Cretaceous of China : implications for enantiornithine ontogeny ; American Museum novitates, no. 3594 |
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| Title: | Juvenile birds from the early Cretaceous of China : implications for enantiornithine ontogeny ; American Museum novitates, no. 3594 |
| Other Titles: | Cretaceous juvenile birds from China |
| Authors: | Chiappe, Luis M. Ji, Shu-An. Ji, Qiang. |
| Issue Date: | 2007 |
| Publisher: | New York, NY : American Museum of Natural History |
| Series/Report no.: | American Museum novitates, no. 3594 |
| Abstract: | "Mesozoic remains of embryonic and early juvenile birds are rare. To date, a handful of in ovo embryos and early juveniles of enantiornithines from the early Cretaceous of China and Spain and the late Cretaceous of Mongolia and Argentina have comprised the entire published record of perinatal ontogenetic stages of Mesozoic birds. We report on the skeletal morphology of three nearly complete early juvenile avians from the renowned early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province in northeastern China. Evidence of the immaturity of these specimens is expressed in the intense grooving and pitting of the periosteal surfaces, the disproportionately small size of the sterna, and the relative size of the skull and orbits. Size notwithstanding, anatomical differences between these three specimens are minimal, leaving no basis for discriminating them into separate taxa. Numerous osteological synapomorphies indicate that they are euenantiornithine birds, the most diverse clade of Enantiorn... |
| Description: | 46 p. : ill. (some col.), map ; 26 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-46). |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2246/5890 |
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