| Qinornis Temporal range: Paleocene, 61 Ma |
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|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Node: | Ornithothoraces |
| clade: | Ornithurae |
| Genus: | †Qinornis Xue, 1995 |
| Species: | †Q. paleocenica |
| Binomial name | |
| Qinornis paleocenica Xue, 1995 |
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Qinornis is a prehistoric bird genus endemic to China during the Paleocene epoch (late Danian age) living about 61 mya. It is known from a single fossil specimen consisting of a partial hind limb and foot. The bones show uniquely primitive characteristics for its age, and its describer considered that it was either a juvenile of a modern bird group or, if an adult, the only known non-neornithine bird to have survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.[1] Unusually for such a recent bird, the bones of the foot are not completely fused to one another. This characteristic is found in juvenile modern birds, and in adults of more primitive, non-neornithean ornithurine birds, all of which were thought to have become extinct in the K-Pg extinction event. In 2007, Mayr examined the bones and concluded that they represented an adult, and probably did come from a non-neornithine bird of some kind.[2] Longrich and colleagues (2011) doubted this assessment, noting that there is the possibility that the bones belonged to a juvenile, but also noted that it was not impossible for some "archaic" birds to have persisted beyond the Cretaceous period for some time, and that this did not invalidate the hypothesis that birds experienced a mass extinction event at the end of the Mesozoic.[3]