Serikornis

Serikornis is a genus of small, feathered anchiornithid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China.

Serikornis, first described in August 2017, is noteworthy for the variety of feather types represented in its holotype, a single complete articulated skeleton preserved on a slab along with extensive integumentary structures.

While its anatomy and integument share features with birds as well as derived dromaeosaurs such as Microraptor, cladistic analysis places the genus within the cluster of feathered dinosaurs near the origin of avians.

[5] A phylogenetic analysis by Lefèvre et al. (2017) places Serikornis, along with other late Jurassic paravians from China, as basal Paraves, outside Eumaniraptora.

[1] †Oviraptorosauria †Scansoriopterygidae †Xiaotingia †Yixianosaurus †Pedopenna †Aurornis †Serikornis †Eosinopteryx †Anchiornis Troodontidae Dromaeosauridae †Archaeopteryx †Rahonavis †Balaur †Jeholornithidae Euavialae In the 2017 description of Halszkaraptor from Cau et al. (2017), who incorporate the a large-scale phylogenetic matrix in their study placed Serikornis in the newly described family Anchiornithidae,[6] still being grouped with Eosinopteryx.

Life restoration by Emily Willoughby