Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis Media
Relative size of two I. dispar specimens: YPM 1742, blue, and YPM 1450, green, compared with a human. Both specimens were adult, but YPM 1450 is approximately one million years older.
Restoration of I. dispar
Skeletal restoration based on the holotype of I. dispar
Cast of the original composite panel mount of "I. victor" (now I. dispar), Peabody Museum of Natural History
Ichthyornis dispar
| Ichthyornis Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
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| Scientific classification | |
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| Subclass: | †Ichthyornithes
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| Genus: | †Ichthyornis
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| Binomial name | |
| Ichthyornis dispar Marsh, 1872
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Ichthyornis (meaning "fish bird") was a tern-like bird which lived 93-83.5 million years ago in the Upper Cretaceous. It lived in flocks, nested on shorelines, and hunted for fish in the Western Interior Seaway, a huge inland sea in what is now North America.
Description
Ichthyornis was about 8 inches (20 cm) long. It had a large head, toothed jaws, and a long beak. This powerful flyer is the oldest-known bird that had a keeled breastbone (sternum) similar to that of modern birds.
Ichthyornis was originally found in 1872 in Kansas by Benjamin Franklin Mudge, a professor from Kansas State Agricultural College. Othniel C. Marsh of Yale University described and named the first fossils. Fossils of the bird have been found in Kansas, Texas and Alberta.