Baptornis

Baptornis is a genus of flightless, aquatic birds from the Late Cretaceous, some 87-80 million years ago. The fossils of Baptornis advenus, the type species, were discovered in Kansas, which at its time was mostly covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow shelf sea. It is now known to have also occurred in today's Sweden, where the Turgai Strait joined the ancient North Sea; possibly, it occurred in the entire Holarctic.

Baptornis

O. C. Marsh · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
BaptornithidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
aquaticPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Hesperornithiformes

Time the record covers

At least 2.1 million years on record.

The record covers at least 85.7 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 89.8 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 10 of 10 occurrencesLate Cretaceous90–90 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences89–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences88–87 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences87–86 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85.7 Mya – 83.6 Mya90.3 Mya71.7 Mya

10 occurrences of Baptornis on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

10 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Dinosaur Park — 49.12°N, 110.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.68°N, 108.09°WNiobrara — 38.75°N, 101.05°WNiobrara — 38.92°N, 101.77°WJudith River — 50.50°N, 107.83°W

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The named rock units Baptornis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Baptornis and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Baptornis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

113 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Baptornis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

6 references

Each of the 10 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Baptornis

Credit
O. C. Marsh
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBaptornithidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marsh 1877