Anchiornis
Anchiornis huxleyi
Anchiornis was the first Mesozoic dinosaur whose almost complete colour pattern became known, and it lies close to the origin of birds.
Image: Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Anchiornis huxleyi
- Period
- Late Jurassic (Oxfordian)
- Lived
- 161–159 Ma (161 million years ago)
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Habitat
- Forest
- Length (estimate)
- 0.34 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 0.11 kg
- Discovered/described
- 2009 · Xu Xing and colleagues (description)
Description
Anchiornis was a chicken-sized little dinosaur with feathers on its arms, legs and tail, giving it in effect four wings. Thanks to exceptionally preserved fossils, researchers could reconstruct its plumage from pigment granules (melanosomes): grey and black, with a reddish-brown crest and white wing stripes. Hundreds of specimens are known.
Habitat
Forests around lakes in a volcanic region of what is now north-eastern China.
Fossil sites
Yaolugou, Liaoning
Tiaojishan Formation
Cultural profile: China →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Anchiornis