Ichthyornis

American  

[ik-thee-awr-nis] / ˌɪk θiˈɔr nɪs /

noun

1. an extinct genus of toothed birds having vertebrae resembling those of fishes.

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ichthyornis British  

/ ˌɪkθɪˈɔːnɪs /

noun

1. an extinct Cretaceous sea bird of the genus Ichthyornis, thought to have resembled a tern

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Etymology

Origin of Ichthyornis

< New Latin (1872) < Greek ichthy- ichthy- ( def. ) + órnis “bird”

Example Sentences

Several skulls of its older Ichthyornis relative have been described in recent years with bones that suggested the bird’s upper palate might have been jointed, but the evidence was still fuzzy.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 30, 2022

They suspect the jointed beak was present in even older birds, because the rest of the specimen indicates it was a relative of Ichthyornis, another ancient bird that lived about 20 million years earlier.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 30, 2022

“Now, with greater knowledge, these scientists are showing us just how bizarre the skull of Ichthyornis really was, with an odd combination of derived and primitive features, but many more primitive features than we’d expect.”

From National Geographic • May 2, 2018

By contrast, the toothed upper jaw in Ichthyornis “is very large, and comparable to what you see in a dinosaur like Velociraptor,” Field says.

From National Geographic • May 2, 2018

The Ichthyornis type was a tern-like flying bird, with socketed teeth and biconcave vertebrae like the reptile, but otherwise fully evolved into a bird.

From The Story of Evolution by McCabe, Joseph