Confuciusornithidae is a family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of primitive bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s from the early Cretaceous Period of China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. It consists of four genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

. About half of all the confuciusornithid specimens, including reprersentatives of all species, that have preserved feathers possess a pair of distinctive ribbon-like tail feathers, and possessed both shafted and non-shafted (downy) feathers.

Taxonomy

The family Confuciusornithidae was first named by Hou et al. in 1995 to contain the type genus, Confuciusornis, and assigned to the order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Confuciusornithiformes within class

Class (biology)

In biological classification, class is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, and species, with class fitting between phylum and order...

 Aves. The group was given a phylogenetic definition by Chiappe, in 1999, who defined a node-based clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

 Confuciusornithidae to include only Changchengornis and Confuciusornis. Sereno expanded this definition to include all species closer to Confuciusornis sanctus than to the modern House Sparrow, Passer domesticus. Jinzhouornis was added to the Confuciusornithidae by Hou, Zhou, and Zhang in 2002,, and in 2008, Zhang, Zhou and Benton assigned the newly described genus Eoconfuciusornis to the family.

There are four genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 and seven known species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

:

• Changchengornis
  Changchengornis
  Changchengornis is an extinct basal bird genus from the Early Cretaceous. Its remains have been found in the People's Republic of China, in Chaomidianzi Formation rocks from around the Barremian-Aptian boundary, deposited 125 million years ago....
  
  
  • Changchengornis hengdaoziensis
• Confuciusornis
  Confuciusornis
  Confuciusornis is a genus of primitive crow-sized birds from the Early Cretaceous Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago...
  
  
  • Confuciusornis sanctus
  • Confuciusornis dui
  • Confuciusornis feducciai
  • Confuciusornis jianchangensis
• Eoconfuciusornis
  Eoconfuciusornis
  Eoconfuciusornis a genus of extinct bird that lived 131 Ma ago, in the Early Cretaceous of China.The type species of Eoconfuciusornis, Eoconfuciusornis zhengi, was named and described by Zhang Fucheng, Zhou Zhonghe and Michael Benton in 2008. The generic name combines a Greek ἠώς, eos, "dawn",...
  
  
  • Eoconfuciusornis zhengi
• Jinzhouornis
  Jinzhouornis
  Jinzhouornis is a dubious genus of prehistoric birds. Their fossils have found in rocks of the Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province , dating from the Early Cretaceous ....
  
  
  • Jingzhouornis yixianensis
  • Jingzhouornis zhangjiyingia

Most confuciusornithids are known from the upper Jehol group, the Yixian Formation

Yixian Formation

The Yixian Formation is a geological formation in Jinzhou, Liaoning, People's Republic of China, that spans 11 million years during the early Cretaceous period...

 and Jiufotang Formation

Jiufotang Formation

The Jiufotang Formation is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms. . It is a member of the Jehol group. The exact age of the Jiufotang has been debated for years, with...

formation, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago. E. zhengi, however, predated the other confuciusornithids by 6 million years, dating to 131 Ma ago.