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DrScottHartman — Jeholornis prima
Published: 2007-02-03 20:58:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 8338; Favourites: 117; Downloads: 160
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Description
Early Chinese dino-bird with a long tail. Unlike archaeopteryx, it was probably capable of reasonably good flight, though it was no crow.Edit: Updated the pose and silhouette. Mercifully the last overhaul I did back in 2006 cleared out any serious issues in the osteology.
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Comments: 18
The documentary name was BBC4- Fossil Wonderlands: Nature's Hidden Treasures serie(2017). Professor Richard Fortey journeys to china for assay Feathered Dinosaurs.
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I'll try and take a look as soon as I have time.
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I saw a program in media that a scientist travel to china and he show us a chines archaeopteryx .... What was it? Archaeopteryx exist in china????
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There is no Archaeopteryx specimen from China. Unfortunately I don't think I've seen the program you are referring to, so I don't know which theropod it was, sorry.
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Jeholornis is very similar to archaeopteryx ... why archaeopteryx was not good for flight but this one was ?
How do you find this fact of its anatomy?
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The arms (and wings) are larger for its size, the hind legs are smaller (so they weigh it down less), the glenoid fossa is in a more avian position, the supracoracoideus had shifted into a decent imitation of the avian pulley system (which is important for rotating the wing during elevation), and the ossified sternum probably supported more pectoral muscle.
Note though that I don't think it was a good flier by the standards of a modern song bird, just that Jeholornis was probably quite a bit better flier than Archaeopteryx.
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The version of this in Mayr's new book lacks the retractable second toe. Is that based on new information/interpretation?
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Not any new information, no, Mayr has long been on the side of them not having retractable second toes.
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Ah! Somewhat ironic then that he co-described the specimen of Archaeopteryx demonstrating its presence in that taxon.
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With its hand so close to the ground, would its flight wings not touch the ground?
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Yes, they would. The pose is more designed to allow comparison with other proto-birds. In the silhouette I just posted to PhyloPic I flexed the wrist more to let the wings clear the ground.
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the skeletal structure is ostly correct, the anatomy, on the other hand, aint, 1st the tail is far to thin at the base, it needs to be wider. 2nd the stomach is far to, thick, he looks like an over weight dino... 3rd off, the neck is to thin at the base, regarding to the stomach.
i hope this helps you, and dont take this as bad critique, cus it aint
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Funny, I'd already updated the neck and tail base when you wrote this (updating DA is just for fun, the professional work comes first, sorry!). The stomach is fine; the "I'm really hungry with a hollow belly" look that Greg Paul popularized only really applies to true carnivores (Jeholornis is a seed eater), and even then only when they haven't eaten for quite a while. Moreover, the actual positioning of the gastral basket varies during the course of respiration, so even a hungry allosaur wouldn't have had its stomach sucked in all the time if you saw them in real life.
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Look at that beefcake lower jaw, I bet he was a thug.
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He stole the lunch money of immature Sapeornis all the time...
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The big beefcake bully bird!
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