ornithichniten.
/ɔːˈnɪθɪknʌɪt/, U.S. /ˌɔrˈnɪθɪkˌnaɪt/ Palaeontology. Now historical and rare.
Edward Hitchcock's name for: a fossil footprint, originally thought to be of a bird or birdlike reptile, now usually attributed to a dinosaur.
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the world > animals > birds > unspecified and miscellaneous birds > [noun] > extinct or fossil > fossil part or egg
ornithichnite1836
ovulite1849
the world > animals > reptiles > extinct reptiles and dinosaurs > [noun] > Sauria > saurian or dinosaur > fossil footprint of
ornithichnite1836
1836 E. Hitchcock in Amer. Jrnl. Sci. 29 315 I include all the varieties of tracks under the term Ornithichnites;.. signifying stony bird tracks.
1852 Littell's Living Age 21 Feb. 372/1 Intervals of six feet were noted as the length of the stride of the impressor of this ornithichnite.
1862 J. R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd Ser. iii. i. 93 The Runes resemble very nearly the ornithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. Hitchcock.
1990 W. A. S. Sarjeant in K. Carpenter & P. J. Currie Dinosaur Systematics (1992) xxii. 300 The earliest classification for vertebrate footprints was formulated by Edward Hitchcock... Believing those tracks to have been made by birds, he termed them Ornithichnites and divided them into two groups, Pachydactyli and Leptodactyli, on the form of the digits.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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