Best preserved Late Cretaceous enantiornithine
Late Cretaceous fossil birds are rare. When found, they are usually very incomplete hindering attempts to understand broad trends in avian evolution across the Cretaceous.
The best-preserved Late Cretaceous enantiornithine known to date.
The holotype of Yuornis represents the best-preserved Late Cretaceous enantiornithine known to date. The specimen consists of a complete 3D skull together with a partial postcranial skeleton. While the postcranial skeleton reveals features typical of enantiornithines and very different than in modern birds, the skull reveals that by the Late Cretaceous enantiornithines had evolved a number of features in parallel to modern birds such as the reduction of the lacrimal, loss of the postorbital, and an edentulous rostrum.