Wyleyia Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Clade: | Avialae |
Clade: | Euornithes |
Genus: | † Wyleyia Harrison & Walker, 1973 |
Species: | †W. valdensis |
Binomial name | |
†Wyleyia valdensis Harrison & Walker, 1973 | |
Wyleyia is an extinct genus of birds, containing a single species, Wyleyia valdensis, known from the early Cretaceous period of Sussex, England. The genus is known from a single specimen, a damaged right humerus. It was named to honor J. F. Wyley, who found the specimen in Weald Clay deposits of Henfield in Sussex (England). The specific name valdensis means "from the Weald".
The bone was found in the Hastings Beds, a series of Valanginian deposits, [1] dated to between 140 and 136 million years ago. [2]
Sometimes believed to be from a non-avialan coelurosaur, it is now generally accepted as an early bird, although its exact systematic position is unresolved. It has been proposed to be an enantiornithine or an early neornithine palaeognathe. C.J.O. Harrison and C.A. Walker found it "advisable to consider the new genus incertae sedis until further evidence of affinity is forthcoming." [3]
Wyleyia may have lived in dense forests in trees where females would make their nests and raise their eggs aswell as many food sources like insects and fruit, such as berries.
Wyleyia may have been insectivorous, eating many insects it could find. Insects it ate included ants and alot more in Wyleyia's diet.
Wyleyia, classified as an extinct bird may have been around the same size as the common sparrow, with males being larger than most female specimens
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Enaliornis is a genus of hesperornithine which lived during the late Albian to the early Cenomanian, making them the oldest known hesperornithines. Fossils have been found near Cambridge, England. Due to its lack of certain hesperornithid apomorphies, they were much more "conventional" birds and were initially held to be Gaviiformes (loons/divers).
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Dasornis is a genus of prehistoric pseudotooth birds. These were probably close relatives of either pelicans and storks or waterfowl; they are placed in the order Odontopterygiformes to account for this uncertainty.
The Wessex Formation is a fossil-rich English geological formation that dates from the Berriasian to Barremian stages of the Early Cretaceous. It forms part of the Wealden Group and underlies the younger Vectis Formation and overlies the Durlston Formation. The dominant lithology of this unit is mudstone with some interbedded sandstones. It is part of the strata of the Wessex Basin, exposed in both the Isle of Purbeck and the Isle of Wight. While the Purbeck sections are largely barren of vertebrate remains, the Isle of Wight sections are well known for producing the richest and most diverse fauna in Early Cretaceous Europe.
Hylaeochampsidae is an extinct family of basal eusuchian crocodylomorphs thought to be closely related to the order Crocodylia.
Proraphidia is a genus of snakefly in the extinct family Mesoraphidiidae. The genus currently contains three species; Proraphidia gomezi from the La Pedrera de Rúbies Formation in Spain, Proraphidia hopkinsi from the Weald Clay in England, and the type species Proraphidia turkestanica from Kazakhstan. The genus was first described by O. M. Martynova in 1941 with the publication of P. turkestanica from Jurassic deposits of the Karabastau Formation in Karatau, Kazakhstan.
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