AGE:
Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Campanian), 75-85 million years old

SIZE:
Small sparrow-sized

MEANING OF NAME:
'Gobi-winged'

PRONUNCIATION:
Gobe-IP-ter-ix

CLASSIFICATION:
AVES (birds): Gobipterygiformes; Gobipterygidae

One of the most ancient of birds, Gobipteryx is known from two crushed skulls and lower jaws from Mongolia. In addition to this there are some embryonic skeletons and eggs (on display in the exhibition) that have been called Gobipteryx, but these may, in fact, belong to another equally ancient group of birds called the Enantiornithiformes.

At the time that Gobipteryx lived, birds were just beginning to develop into the groups we know today. Birds as a group were derived from small carnivorous lizardhipped dinosaurs (saurischians). The oldest vertebrate that has been called a bird is the first vertebrate with feathers, Archaeopteryx, from the Late Jurassic of Germany during the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, primitive birds experimented with many different lifestyles, and it wasn't until the early stages of the Cainozoic, the Age of Mammals (beginning at 65 million years ago), that the broad outlines of modern groupings of birds could be seen.

Gobipteryx still has many reptilian characters, for example one of the bones of the jaw, the quadrate, resembles bones in theropod dinosaurs. But Gobipteryx also had bird-like features too.

Many palaeontologists view Gobipteryx and a number of other Cretaceous birds as early experiments in 'birddom' that didn't give rise to any later birds, but tried out the avian lifestyle until crowded out by better 'models' which in turn did give rise to our modern birds.

Gobipteryx would have had feathers and probably would have been able to fly.

Small eggs are those thought to belong to Gobipteryx;
Large egg is that of a hadrosaur (from Gureelin Tsav, Southern Mongolia).