Huanghuagou, Shangyuan (Cretaceous to of China)

Also known as Confuciusornis sanctus type; Beipiao

Where: Liaoning, China (41.6° N, 121.0° E: paleocoordinates 44.3° N, 122.8° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Yixian Formation (Jehol Group), Late/Upper Barremian to Late/Upper Barremian (130.0 - 122.5 Ma)

• thought to be Tithonian or possibly "as young as middle Cretaceous" by Hou et al. 1995, but Yixian localities in general are now thought to be Barremian or early Aptian

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lacustrine; lithified mudstone

• "deposited in a lake"
• "freshwater mudstones"

•As a result, tuffs are commonly interbedded with the shales or mudstones of these formations, and even the normal lake sedimentation contains tuffaceous components (Figure 1). The Yixian Formation mainly comprises basalts with interbedded siliciclastic sediments, and can be divided into several beds (Zhongue, 2006).

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: adpression, soft parts

Reposited in the IVPP

• type specimen of C. sanctus donated by an amateur fossil collector, Zhang He" and second specimen "from the same locality" found "by a farmer, Yang Yushan; this is not the most productive, second Confuciusornis locality, which is at Sihetun (Zhou and Hou 2002)

Primary reference: L.-h. Hou, Z. Zhou, L. D. Martin and A. Feduccia. 1995. A beaked bird from the Jurassic of China. Nature 377:616-618 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 85298: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 11.12.2008

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Aves
 Confuciusornithiformes - Confuciusornithidae
Confuciusornis sanctus n. gen. n. sp.
Confuciusornis sanctus n. gen. n. sp. Hou et al. 1995 bird