Gallornis

During the time of Gallornis, its range was located around 30°N, north of the Tropic of Cancer aridity belt. However, the Cretaceous was a hot and humid age in general, so the habitat might have more resembled West Africa around the Gulf of Guinea. Higher sealevels had large parts of Europe submerged for much of the time, and Southeast Europe and Asia Minor had not even attached to that continent yet (see also Haţeg Island, Haţeg Basin). The Alpide orogeny (the uplift of the Eurasian latitudinal mountain belt) had not even gotten underway. Gallornis was a contemporary of many (non-avian) dinosaurs living around the (Second) Tethys Sea. In the archipelago that was then Europe, huge sauropods appear to have been the dominant herbivores. Apart from some early birds, pterosaurs roamed the skies of the European microcontinents, (more abundant and diverse than the few bird species), while semi-aquatic crocodylomorphs (e.g. Goniopholis, Pholidosaurus, Vectisuchus) and marine thalattosuchians were common. Stegosaurs were apparently rare (e.g. Regnosaurus northamptoni). Theropods like Concavenator and Baryonyx may have existed alongside it as well. == Classification ==

As it is so close to the common origin of all living birds, Gallornis cannot be assigned to any living family and probably not even to any extant order. However, the difference in age alone virtually rules out a close relationship between these two, and the early age of the Gallornis fossils makes it highly unlikely that this taxon was allied to the flamingos. A more probable hypothesis, echoing the initial description of 1931, is that Gallornis was an early member of the Galloanserae, the clade that eventually brought forth the Galliformes (landfowl) and Anseriformes (waterfowl) of our time. With the remains at hand, however, it cannot even be reliably determined whether Gallornis was a paleognath or a neognath. A dissertation published in 2019 classified Gallornis within Ornithuromorpha. == References ==