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  • Ichthyornis
    Ichthyornis
    noun
    an extinct genus of toothed birds having vertebrae resembling those of fishes.
  • ichthyornis
    ichthyornis
    noun
    an extinct Cretaceous sea bird of the genus Ichthyornis, thought to have resembled a tern

Ichthyornis

American  
[ik-thee-awr-nis] / ˌɪk θiˈɔr nɪs /

noun

  1. an extinct genus of toothed birds having vertebrae resembling those of fishes.


ichthyornis British  
/ ˌɪkθɪˈɔːnɪs /

noun

  1. an extinct Cretaceous sea bird of the genus Ichthyornis, thought to have resembled a tern

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Ichthyornis

< New Latin (1872) < Greek ichthy- ichthy- ( def. ) + órnis “bird”

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

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

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

But chambers on each side of the skull suggest Ichthyornis had large jaw muscles more similar to those of its dinosaurian ancestors.

From Scientific American May 2, 2018

The largest collection of toothed birds, including the types of Hesperornis, Ichthyornis and others, is in the Yale University Museum, at New Haven.

From Animals of the Past by Lucas, Frederic A.

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