Category
page 1Taxa named by Pierce Brodkorb
Titanis
Titanis (meaning "Titan" for the Titans of Greek mythology) is a genus of phorusrhacid ("terror birds", a group originating in South America), an extinct family of large, predatory birds, in the order Cariamiformes that inhabited the United States from the early Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The first fossils were unearthed by amateur archaeologists Benjamin Waller and Robert Allen from the Santa Fe River in Florida and were named Titanis walleri by ornithologist Pierce Brodkorb in 1963, the species name honoring Waller. The holotype material is fragmentary, consisting of only an incomplete r
Alexornis
Alexornis was a genus of enantiornithine birds from the La Bocana Roja Formation of Baja California, Mexico. This geological formation has been dated to the late Cretaceous period, and more specifically to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages, about 93.6 mya. The type and only known species is Alexornis antecedens. The scientific name as a whole means "Alex's ancestral bird"; Alexornis from the given name of ornithologist Alexander Wetmore + Ancient Greek ornis, "bird", and antecedens, Latin for "going before" or "ancestral".
Torotix
Torotix is a Late Cretaceous genus of aquatic birds. They lived along the shores of the Western Interior Seaway, but it is not clear whether they were seabirds or freshwater birds, as the genus is only known from a humerus. Consequently, the genus contains only one known species, Torotix clemensi. T. clemensi is represented by a single fossil specimen, a partial humerus (upper arm bone) recovered from the Lance formation of Wyoming. Its deposits are dated to the very end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago.
Ceramornis
Ceramornis is a genus of ornithuran dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous. It lived shortly before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event in the Maastrichtian, some Its remains were found in the Lull 2 location, a Lance Formation site in Niobrara County, Wyoming. A single species is known, Ceramornis major, and even that only from a proximal piece of coracoid. This is specimen UCMP V53957, which was collected by a University of California team in 1958.
thumb|left|Size (lower middle right) compared to contemporary birds, pterosaurs, and a human