Baminornis enters the LRT
Headless, incomplete and scattered,
the Late Jurassic bird Baminornis (Figs 1, 2, Chen et al 2025, IVPP V33259 and V33260) was described with a complete ‘pygostyle’ appearing before other tentative pygostyles began to gradually appear in the Early Cretaceous.
Question is: was this pygostyle correctly identified? The paper hangs on this question.
Second question is: which taxon is Baminornis most closely related to?
Figure 1. Bamiornis in situ with elements traced by the authors.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif?w=100″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif?w=341″ class=”size-full wp-image-91689″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif” alt=”Figure 1. Bamiornis in situ with elements traced by the authors. ” width=”584″ height=”1755″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif?w=584&h=1755 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif?w=50&h=150 50w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif?w=100&h=300 100w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis_insitu588.gif 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 1. Baminornis in situ with elements traced by the authors. The pygostyle is labeled ‘py’.
The forelimbs elements are atypically short and weak
despite the robust coracoids indicating the ability to flap. This is also important.
Figure 2. Baminornis reconstructed. The ‘pygostyle’ is enlarged. The Liaoning embryo IVPP V14238 is shown to scale. Note the long, locked down coracoids, indicating flapping. Note the short humerus and gracile ulna and radius indicating this flapping bird did not fly.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg?w=237″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg?w=584″ class=”size-full wp-image-91709″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg” alt=”Figure 2. Baminornis reconstructed. The ‘pygostyle’ is enlarged. The Liaoning embryo IVPP V14238 is shown to scale. Note the long, locked down coracoids, indicating flapping. Note the short humerus and gracile ulna and radius indicating this flapping bird did not fly.” width=”584″ height=”740″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg?w=584&h=740 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg?w=118&h=150 118w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg?w=237&h=300 237w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.recon588.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 2. Baminornis reconstructed. The ‘pygostyle’ is enlarged. The Liaoning embryo IVPP V14238 is shown to scale. Note the long, locked down coracoids, indicating flapping. Note the short humerus and gracile ulna and radius indicating this flapping bird did not fly.
Here
in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2337 taxa) Baminornis nests with the Liaoning embryo (IVPP V14238), recovered within its eggshell. The embryo does not have a pygostyle. It has a long tail.
Baminornis appears to lack a pygostyle, too. Baminornis appears to have the robust base of a long tail that is otherwise missing in this otherwise scattered fossil.
Figure 3. The London specimen of Archaeopteryx and Baminornis to scale. The London specimen is related to Heperornis, a Cretaceous bird with vestigial forelimbs. Note the robust tail base.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg?w=584″ class=”size-full wp-image-91711″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg” alt=”Figure 3. The London specimen of Archaeopteryx and Baminornis to scale. The London specimen is related to Heperornis, a Cretaceous bird with vestigial forelimbs. Note the robust tail base.” width=”584″ height=”501″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg?w=584&h=501 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg?w=150&h=129 150w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg?w=300&h=257 300w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/archaeopteryx_london-recon588-1.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 3. The London specimen of Archaeopteryx and Baminornis to scale. The London specimen is related to Heperornis, a Cretaceous bird with vestigial forelimbs. Note the robust tail base.
Chen et al wrote,
“Recent macroevolutionary studies predict a diversification of early birds during the Jurassic period, but the unquestionable Jurassic bird fossil record is limited to Archaeopteryx, which has also been referred to deinonychosaurian dinosaurs by some analyses.”
Taxon exclusion is the problem with Chen et al. The LRT tests ten Solnhofen birds, including the original Archaeopteryx, the London specimen (Fig 3). Chen et al test just one.
“Although they have feathered wings, the known Jurassic birds are more similar to non-avialan theropods in having the ancestral long reptilian tail.”
Many post Archaeopteryx birds retain long tetrapod tails (Fig 5), not complete pygostyles. The authors are trumping up their own discovery by pulling down other taxa.
“This is in stark contrast to most Cretaceous and crownward taxa, which have a short tail that terminates in a compound bone called the pygostyle.”
Beware of such statements. ‘Most’ only means 51+ percent, if true. That leave open the possibility of ‘many’, maybe over 40 percent. The Chen et al cladogram does not match the LRT in this regard. More long-tailed taxa nest in post-Jurassic portion of the LRT. So “stark contrast” is not true.
“Here we report on the oldest short-tailed avialan, Baminornis zhenghensis gen. et sp. nov., from the recently discovered Late Jurassic Zhenghe Fauna, which fills a noticeable spatio-temporal gap in the earliest branching avialan fossil record.”
But is this (Fig 2) a real pygostyle? It appears to be the robust proximal portion of a missing long tail. The bone-to-bone sutures are visible. In other words, this is not the specimen to hang all your hopes and papers on. Yet everyone involved bought into it.
“B. zhenghensis exhibits a unique combination of derived ornithothoracine-like pectoral and pelvic girdles and plesiomorphic non-avialan maniraptoran hand, demonstrating mosaic evolution along stem avialan line.”
‘Mosaic evolution’ too often means ‘we got things wrong due to taxon exclusion, but don’t want to admit it.’ Add taxa and mosaic evolution goes away.
The hand is not plesiomorphic. It is secondarily reduced, derived, heading toward becoming a vestige, as in Hesperornis and other flightless birds by convergence.
Figure 4. The early bird subset of the LRT with the addition of Bamornis. Note Late Jurassic Solnhofen birds (light green) had already widely radiated by the Late Jurassic. This fact ws omitted by Chen et al due to taxon exclusion.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg?w=117″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg?w=398″ class=”size-full wp-image-91713″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg” alt=”Figure 4. The early bird subset of the LRT with the addition of Bamornis. Note Late Jurassic Solnhofen birds (light green) had already widely radiated by the Late Jurassic. This fact ws omitted by Chen et al due to taxon exclusion.” width=”584″ height=”1504″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg?w=584&h=1504 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg?w=58&h=150 58w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg?w=117&h=300 117w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/baminornis.cladogram588.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 4. The early bird subset of the LRT with the addition of Bamornis. Note Late Jurassic Solnhofen birds (light green) had already widely radiated by the Late Jurassic. This fact ws omitted by Chen et al due to taxon exclusion.
Chen et al wrote,
“An avialan furcula collected from the same locality is referrable to ornithuromorphs on the basis of our morphometric and phylogenetic analyses. These newly discovered fossils demonstrate the early appearance of highly derived bird features, and together with an anchiornithine fossil from the same locality, they suggest an earlier origin of birds and a radiation of early birds in the Jurassic.”
That radiation of early birds in the Jurassic? You heard that here first as the ten tested Solnhofen birds do not nest together in the LRT (subset Fig 4). Chen et al overlooked this revelation by omitting all but one Solnhofen bird.
If you got’em, use’em!
How many characters did Chen et al use to score Bamorinis? 853 in one test.
280 in a second analysis.
How many Solnhofen birds did Chen et al test in analysis?
At least nine too few (Fig 4).
Those more than a dozen Solnhofen birds
vary in size and morphology, and some are perfectly preserved, yet academics refuse to enter them into analyses, even now in 2025.
A little backstory explains this: The author-mentors approved this. The Nature editors approved this. The referees approved this. This time tradition impeded progress.
By contrast, the LRT (subset Fig 4) minimizes taxon exclusion by including a wide gamut of taxa.
To those readers who still think adding characters rather than taxa is the thing to do, consider Chen et al a cautionary tale.
Figure 4. Confuciusornithiformes to scale. Note the lack of a pygostyle in the majority of taxa.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg?w=584″ class=”size-full wp-image-29486″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg” alt=”Figure 4. Confuciusornithiformes to scale. Note the lack of a pygostyle in the majority of taxa.” width=”584″ height=”561″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg?w=584&h=561 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg?w=150&h=144 150w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg?w=300&h=288 300w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/confuciusornithiformes588.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 5. Confuciusornithiformes to scale. Note the lack of a pygostyle in the majority of taxa.
Early Cretaceous Confuciusornis sanctus
(Fig 5) demonstrates the tentative origin of the pygostyle in early birds, starting with just the tip. The pygostyle originated several times by convergence in the LRT.
Archaeopteryx lithographica
The London specimen – BMNH 37001, is the holoytype for the genus and species. It is basal to Hesperornis. Only the LRT recovers this at present.
References
Chen R, Wang M, Dong L, et al. 2025. Earliest short-tailed bird from the Late Jurassic of China. Nature 638, 441–448. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08410-z
Publicity
Brusatte SL 2025. The lost long tail of early bird evolution. Nature News & Views 12 Feb 2025.
reuters.com/science/jurassic-fossil-china-rewrites-history-bird-evolution-2025-02-12/
Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2025/02/13/baminornis-enters-the-lrt/
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