Eoalulavis

Taxobox
name = "Eoalulavis"
status = fossil
fossil_range = Early Cretaceous (Aptian)
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
subclassis = Enantiornithes
superordo = Euenantiornithes
genus = "Eoalulavis"
genus_authority =
species = "E. hoyasi"
binomial = "Eoalulavis hoyasi"
binomial_authority =

"Eoalulavis" was an enantiornithine bird. It lived during the Aptian in the Early Cretaceous, about 115 mya and is known from fossils found at Las Hoyas, Spain. Only a single species is known, "Eoalulavis hoyasi". [Monastersky (1996), Sanz "et al.," (1996)]

At the time of its discovery, it was the oldest known bird to possess an alula, a batch of feathers on the thumb that can be separately moved to improve stability at low flight speeds. This feature evolved either independently in Enantiornithes and the ancestors of mordern birds, or it is very ancient and dates back to soon after "Archaeopteryx". The former is considered more likely, as an alula is not known from the most primitive Mesozoic birds. The same seems to go for uncinate processes, which are absent in this species but present in a few other contemporary birds, some of them (like "Longipteryx chaoyangensis") also Enantiornithes.

Footnotes

References

* (1996): Evolution's fast track toward slow flight. "Science News" 150(5): 71. [http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/pdfs/data/1996/150-05/15005-10.pdf PDF fulltext]
* (1996): An Early Cretaceous bird from Spain and its implications for the evolution of avian flight. "Nature" 382(6590): 442-445. doi|10.1038/382442a0 (HTML abstract)