Anchiornis huxleyi
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Anchiornis Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 160.89–160.25 Ma |
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| Fossil specimen | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Troodontidae |
| Subfamily: | †Anchiornithinae |
| Genus: |
†Anchiornis Xu et al., 2009 |
| Species: | †A. huxleyi |
| Binomial name | |
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Anchiornis huxleyi Xu et al., 2009 |
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Anchiornis is a type of small, four-winged paravian dinosaur. The genus Anchiornis contains only the type species Anchiornis huxleyi, which means "Huxley's nearby bird", in reference to its similarity to modern birds. Anchiornis fossils have been only found in the Liaoning Province of China, in rocks dated to the late Jurassic period, about 160 million years ago. Anchiornis is known from hundreds of specimens, and given the exquisite preservation of some of these fossils, it became the first Mesozoic dinosaur species for which almost the entire life appearance could be determined, and an important source of information on the early evolution of birds.
Anchiornis huxleyi was a small, bipedal theropod dinosaur with a triangular skull bearing several details in common with dromaeosaurids, troodontids, and primitive avialans. Like other early paravians, Anchiornis was small, about the size of a crow. It had long, wing-bearing arms, long legs, and a long tail. Like all paravians, it was covered in feathers, though it also had scales on certain parts of the body. The wings, legs, and tail supported long but relatively narrow vaned feathers. Two types of simpler, downy (plumaceous) feathers covered the rest of the body, as in Sinornithosaurus: down feathers made up of filaments attached at their bases, and more complex down feathers with barbs attached along a central quill. Long, simple feathers covered almost the entire head and neck, torso, upper legs, and the first half of the tail. The rest of the tail bore pennaceous tail feathers (rectrices). Long feathers on the head (crown) may have formed a crest. While the first specimen of Anchiornis preserved only faint traces of feathers around the preserved portion of the body, many more well-preserved fossils have since been found. Studies of Anchiornis specimens using laser fluorescence have revealed not only more details of the feathers, but also of the skin and muscle tissue. Taken together, this evidence has given scientists a nearly complete picture of Anchiornis anatomy.
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