Janavis (from the Roman god Janus and the Latin avis for bird) is an extinct toothed bird belonging to the Ichthyornithes from the Late Cretaceous of Belgium. The genus has one named species, Janavis finalidens (from Latin finalis, meaning ending or final, and dens, for tooth) that was discovered in the 1990s, reported in 2002, and described in 2022. Recovered almost simultaneously from the same area and age as Asteriornis maastrichtensis, then the oldest known modern bird, it provides information on the evolution and divergence of basal and modern birds, especially on the evolutionary modifications of bird skulls.
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Janavis in the context of Ichthyornithines
Ichthyornithes is an extinct group of toothed avialan dinosaurs very closely related to the common ancestor of all modern birds. They are known from fossil remains found throughout the late Cretaceous period of North America, though only two genera, Ichthyornis and Janavis, are represented by complete enough fossils to have been named. Ichthyornitheans became extinct at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, along with enantiornitheans, all other non-avian dinosaurs, and many other animal and plant groups.
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