In Depth
Kompsornis is a genus of jeholornithiforme avialan that lived in Asia during the early Cretaceous. As a jeholornithiforme, Kompsornis would have been similar to the more famous Jeholornis, though there are still clear differences between the two genera. Cross sections sampled from the holotype specimen suggest that the holotype individual of Kompsornis was at least four years old at the time of death, yet still not fully grown. More tellingly though is the observation that the sternum of this individual Kompsornis was already fused with a well-developed keel. This strongly suggests that Kompsornis was a capable flyer, even more so than many other jeholornithiformes.
Further reading
- A new jeholornithiform exhibits the earliest appearance of the fused sternum and pelvis in the evolution of avialan dinosaurs. - Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. in press: Article 104401. - Xuri Wang, Jiandong Huang, Martin Kundr�t, Andrea Cau, Xiaoyu Liu, Yang Wang & Shubin Ju - 2020.
