Judinornis
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| Judinornis Fossil range: Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian?) |
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| Judinornis nogontsavensis |
Judinornis is a prehistoric flightless bird genus from the Late Cretaceous. The single known species is Judinornis nogontsavensis. Its fossils have been found in Nemegt Formation rocks of southern Mongolia, and as the age of these deposits is not entirely resolved, Judinornis may have lived some 70 million years ago (mya) during the early Maastrichtian, or perhaps somewhat earlier, 76 mya, during the Campanian.
The Nemegt Formation does not seem to contain marine sediments. Consequently and unlike its relatives, this was apparently a bird of estuaries and rivers running from the mountains thrown up by the Cimmerian orogeny through the arid lands of continental East Asia towards the Turgai Sea and the former Shigatze Ocean.[verification needed]
Judinornis was a member of the Hesperornithes, flightless toothed seabirds of the Cretaceous. Though its relationships to other members of this group are inadequately known, it appears to have been one of the more basal Hesperornithes.[1]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Mortimer (2004)
[edit] References
- Mortimer, Michael (2004): The Theropod Database: Phylogeny of taxa. Retrieved 2007-OCT-29.
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