Confuciusornis sanctus

a pigeon-sized bird from the early Cretaceous of China. Note the long tail feathers preserved in this fossil.

For those interested in palaeontology, the Palaeozoological Museum Of China is absolutely outstanding. The museum is on three floors, the lower one for dinosaurs including several fully-mounted skeletons (the displays are a mix of real fossils and casts) and fossil fish, the next floor for more dinosaurs and birds, and the third for mammals. Really fascinating fossils here, although unfortunately all the signage is in Chinese apart for the scientific names.

Visited September 2013.

Worthy of further note is that fact that along with its immediate kin, this taxon *only* had a pair of long tail feathers - possibly for display purposes - lacking a tail fan as found in living avian taxa and with the only other tail feathers being short contour-plumage as found on the rest of the body. Many individuals lacked even the long display feathers - possibly due to sexual dimorphism.