Apsaravis Norell & Clarke, 2001

Apsaravis Norell & Clark, 2001 (Nature (Lond) 409 (6817), 11 January: 181 NcZ) "apsara bird"
up-suh-RAY-vis (Sanskrit apsara, a mythical winged being + Lat. avis "bird")* (f) named for the apsara (also called apsaras), female winged consorts in Buddhist and Hindu art. Apsaravis is a primitive ornithurine bird known from a well preserved uncrushed, partly articulated partial skeleton with a fragmentary skull (Holotype: IGM 100/1017 (Institute of Geology, Mongolia)) from the Late Cretaceous (?Campanian) Ukhaa Tolgod site in southern Mongolia, dating from around 80 million years. Apsaravis has a mosaic of primitive and advanced features. It is notable as "the most basal avialan with an extensor process...related to the insertion of the extensor carpi radialis muscle and the propatagial ligaments in Aves"-- features that connect movement of the hand to movement of the forearm, with a key role in transition from the upstroke to the downstroke in the flight of modern birds. Other characters such as at least 10 ankylosed sacral vertebrae and the shape of the pelvis also place it close to modern birds, with some relation to the ornithurine toothed bird Ichthyornis, though Apsaravis may lack teeth. It also shares a number of primitive plesiomorphies present in Enantiornithes and some theropod dinosaurs, such as a strong concavity on the posterodorsal coracoid. Apsaravis comes from a continental deposit, indicating that early ornithurine birds were not confined to marine or near-shore environments as some earlier evidence suggested.
Type Species: Apsaravis ukhaana [oo-KAH-nuh] Norell & Clark, 2001: (Ukhaa + Lat. - ana "belonging to") "from Ukhaa Tolgod," the type locality in southern Mongolia. Ornithurae Late Cretaceous (?Campanian) Mongolia [added 3-2001]

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