Ichthyornis
noun
an extinct genus of toothed birds having vertebrae resembling those of fishes.
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Ichthyornis
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ichthyornis
ichthyornisnounan extinct Cretaceous sea bird of the genus Ichthyornis, thought to have resembled a tern
Ichthyornis
American
[ik-thee-awr-nis]
/ ˌɪk θiˈɔr nɪs /
noun
ichthyornis
British
/ ˌɪkθɪˈɔːnɪs /
noun
Etymology
Origin of Ichthyornis
< New Latin (1872) < Greek ichthy- ichthy- ( def. ) + órnis “bird”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
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
The first known fossil of the ancient bird Ichthyornis was unearthed in 1870 in Kansas, under the direction of legendary fossil-hunter Othniel Charles Marsh.
From National Geographic ● May 2, 2018
Fort Hays State University undergraduate Kris Super found the new Ichthyornis specimen in 2014, unearthing it from the 82- to 87-million-year-old-rocks of Kansas’s Niobrara Chalk.
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 Joseph McCabe
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
