Qiang Ji’s research while affiliated with Hebei University and other places

... During the last 25 years, an extraordinary diversity of fossil birds has been described from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Group of North Eastern China Wang et al., 2022b;Wu et al., 2023;Wang et al., 2024;Zhou and Wang, 2024), including a series of lineages not directly related to the living avians, such as Jeholornithidae, Sapeornithidae, Jinguofortisidae, Confuciusornithidae, and Enantiornithes, together with various taxa closer to the crown group (¼Aves/Neornithes), which with the latter form the Euornithes (Chiappe et al., 1999;Zhou and Zhang, 2002;Zhou, 2004Zhou, , 2014O'Connor et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2020b). The rich fossil record from the Jehol Biota has documented many steps along the evolutionary process leading to the modern avian skeletal plan from the ancestral avialan condition (Cau, 2018), including key innovations in the skull and mandible (e.g., Zheng et al., 2018;Bailleul et al., 2019), in the flight apparatus (e.g., O'Connor et al., 2010;O'Connor and Zhou, 2012), and in the growth pattern (O'Connor et al., 2015). ...

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A new gansuid bird (Avialae, Euornithes) from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) Jiufotang Formation of Jianchang, western Liaoning, China

... One example of these fossils is a cranium found from Xuchang-Lingjing dated between 125-105 ka (Li et al., 2017b), which has been reported to resemble Neanderthals or Denisovans (Gokhman et al., 2019). A >148 ka skull from Harbin, northern China, was proposed as a new species, H. longi, and the morphological characteristics of this individual are considered to be closely related to Denisovans Ji et al., 2021;Shao et al., 2021). Chen et al. (2019) reported that the putative Denisovan mandible from Xiahe is similar to fossils from Penghu (~190-10 ka) in Taiwan and from Xujiayao (~0.37-0.1 Ma) in the Nihewa Basin, China. ...

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East and Southeast Asian hominin dispersal and evolution: A review

... One example of these fossils is a cranium found from Xuchang-Lingjing dated between 125-105 ka (Li et al., 2017b), which has been reported to resemble Neanderthals or Denisovans (Gokhman et al., 2019). A >148 ka skull from Harbin, northern China, was proposed as a new species, H. longi, and the morphological characteristics of this individual are considered to be closely related to Denisovans Ji et al., 2021;Shao et al., 2021). Chen et al. (2019) reported that the putative Denisovan mandible from Xiahe is similar to fossils from Penghu (~190-10 ka) in Taiwan and from Xujiayao (~0.37-0.1 Ma) in the Nihewa Basin, China. ...

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East and Southeast Asian hominin dispersal and evolution: A review

... One of these is the alteration of biomorphometric aspects of certain segments of the human body. With origins in the Palaeolithic/hunter-gatherer populations, the intentional cranial deformation is a well-known custom across time, present on all continents (Ni et al. 2020). We discuss here the most ancient find of this type known north of the Lower Danube. ...

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From the Eurasian steppe to the Lower Danube: the tradition of intentional cranial deformation during the Bronze Age

... The rich fossil record from the Jehol Biota has documented many steps along the evolutionary process leading to the modern avian skeletal plan from the ancestral avialan condition (Cau, 2018), including key innovations in the skull and mandible (e.g., Zheng et al., 2018;Bailleul et al., 2019), in the flight apparatus (e.g., O'Connor et al., 2010;O'Connor and Zhou, 2012), and in the growth pattern (O'Connor et al., 2015). A pivotal phase of the evolutionary trajectory leading to the origin of the modern birds during the mid-Cretaceous is represented by the Gansus-like euornithines (e.g., You et al., 2006;Liu et al., 2014;O'Connor et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2020e). These avialans are among the oldest instances of semi-aquatic adaptations along the bird lineage, showing appendicular innovations suggesting a less arboreal lifestyle than in other pygostylians, and hindlimb novelties analogous to those of modern aquatic birds (You et al., 2006). ...

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A new gansuid bird (Avialae, Euornithes) from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) Jiufotang Formation of Jianchang, western Liaoning, China

... Finally, in therian mammals, 8. the extended ventral bony plates of the shoulder and pelvic girdles are absent (e.g., Brocklehurst et al. 2022;Bishop and Pierce 2024b), and 9. the scapula is the most strongly developed element of the shoulder girdle (e.g., Bishop et al. 2022). The latter two characters do not apply to living monotremes, which are the sister group of therian mammals, and which still bear a plate-shaped interclavicular and large pro-and metacoracoids (Meng et al. 2017). ...

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Remarks on the functional morphology of the earliest mammals

... This broad adaptive slope could represent the foothill of a steep flyer peak such that gliders are very slowly evolving towards a flyer peak (Fig. 6A). The evolutionarily oldest extant glider lineages, dermopterans (colugos) and anomalurids (scaly-tailed squirrels), have evolved farthest from ancestral arborealists (Grossnickle et al., 2020) although some extinct gliders may have experienced relatively greater change from ancestral arborealists (e.g., Meng et al., 2017;Luo et al., 2017). Here, the dermopteran species Cynocephalus volans and Galeopterus variegatus are the gliders closest to the flyer forelimb region of morphospace (Figs. ...

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Gliding toward an understanding of the origin of flight in bats

... omnivorous) (see electronic supplementary material for dietary terminology). Specifically , the discovery of diminutive conical teeth, keratinous rhamphotheca (Norell et al. 2001) and gastric mill (Kobayashi et al. 1999) has been proposed as evidence for herbivory in ornithomimosaurs; the 'glirodont' dentition of Incisivosaurus (Xu et al. 2002a) and Protarchaeopteryx ( Ji & Ji 1997) and the gastric mill of Caudipteryx (Ji et al. 1998 ) are espoused as evidence for herbivory in oviraptorosaurs ; and the widely spaced, coarse dental serrations of some derived troodontids are more congruent with the dentition of extant herbivorous squamates such as iguanids than of obligate carnivores (Holtz et al. 1998). Widespread speculation of herbivory among coelurosaurian dinosaurs notwithstanding, the utility of morphological features alleged to correlate with diet in coelurosaurian theropods has not been tested analytically, nor have reconstructions of dietary evolution been subjected to empirical scrutiny within a character-comprehensive, species-level phylogenetic framework. ...

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A new North American therizinosaurid and the role of herbivory in ‘predatory’ dinosaur evolution

... Ctenochasmatoidea is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea and has been defined as the clade containing Cycnorhamphus suevicus, Pterodaustro guinazui, their most recent common ancestor, and all of its descendants [1]. At present, although there are nine genera of ctenochasmatoids reported from the Jehol Biota: Eosipterus [2], Beipiaopterus [3], Feilongus [4], Cathayopterus [5], Gegepterus [6][7], Elanodactylus [8][9], Pterofiltrus [10], Gladocephaloideus [11] and Moganopterus [12], they are known from either skulls or a relatively complete postcranial skeletons but not both, making comparisons difficult. A new specimen of a nearly complete juvenile assigned to Gladocephaloideus from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Sihedang, Lingyuan of Liaoning Province (Fig 1) is therefore a significant addition as the most complete ctenocahsmatid yet recovered from this formation. ...

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New Material of the Pterosaur Gladocephaloideus Lü et al., 2012 from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning Province, China, with Comments on Its Systematic Position

... However, troodontid specimens with articulation are extremely rare. Although well-preserved and articulated basal troodontid specimens have been found in the Barremian deposits of China over the last 20 years 6,7,[17][18][19][20] , diagnosed troodontids from the middle Cretaceous are represented by only two taxa, Sinornithoides 21 and Urbacodon 22 . Sinornithoides from China comprises a nearly complete skeleton with a sleeping posture, whereas Urbacodon from Uzbekistan consists only of a dentary with some teeth. ...

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Early Cretaceous troodontine troodontid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Ohyamashimo Formation of Japan reveals the early evolution of Troodontinae