Gobipteryx

Extinct genus of birds

Gobipteryx (from Gobi [referring to the Gobi Desert where it was first discovered], and Greek pteryx "wing") is a genus of prehistoric bird from the Campanian Age of the Late Cretaceous Period. It is not known to have any direct descendants.

Based on a skull length of 45 millimeters, Gobipteryx has been estimated to be approximately the size of a partridge. Its bones are fibrolamellar. The skull's general shape is gradually tapering toward the front. The skull is characterized as being rhynchokinetic and the palatine. The nares are smaller than the antorbital fenestrae, a basal feature for ornithurae birds. The neural spines of the twelfth and thirteenth vertebrae form the nuchal blade, which represents the point of greatest elevation in the vertebral column. and Gobipteryx was reclassified as an enantiornithes bird. In 1996, Evgeny Kurochkin described a new bird known as Nanantius valifanovi also from the Barun Goyot Formation. However, it was later discovered that N. valifanoi was actually a new misidentified specimen of Gobipteryx minuta. The mistake was, at least in part, due to a misidentification of the maxilla and dentary bones of the skull. In 1994, an expedition to the Gobi Desert was conducted by the American Museum of Natural History and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, where a well preserved Gobiptetyx minuta skull was found in the Nemegt Basin. This new specimen provided further evidence for the placement of Gobipteryx into enantiornithes. In addition, it allowed for the reconstruction of the palate, which was poorly understood in Mesozoic birds. Also during the 1971 Polish Mongolian Paleontological Expedition to the Gobi Desert, in which the first specimens were found, advanced embryos of Gobipteryx minuta were found. Seven specimens in total were found, including two skeletons in the redbeds of Khermeen Tsav in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. These embryos made up the second confirmed embryonic fossils from before the Quaternary Period as well as the first confirmed postcranial fossils of G. minuta found.