Tsidiiyazhi abini (Navajo: little morning bird) is an extinct relative of the modern mousebirds, found in 2017 in the Nacimiento Formation on ancestral Navajo lands in New Mexico. It is the only species in the genus Tsidiiyazhi. It lived between 62.2 and 62.5 million years ago,[2] making it one of the oldest Cenozoic birds yet described.

Tsidiiyazhi
Temporal range: Danian[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Clade: Coraciimorphae
Order: Coliiformes
Family: Sandcoleidae
Genus: Tsidiiyazhi
Ksepka et al., 2017
Species

Tsidiiyazhi abini Ksepka et al., 2017

References

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  1. ^ Daniel T. Ksepka; Thomas A. Stidham; Thomas E. Williamson (2017). "Early Paleocene landbird supports rapid phylogenetic and morphological diversification of crown birds after the K–Pg mass extinction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 114 (30): 8047–8052. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114.8047K. doi:10.1073/pnas.1700188114. PMC 5544281. PMID 28696285.
  2. ^ "Tiny fossil reveals what happened to birds after dinosaurs went extinct".