Abstract
Baptornis advenus is a foot-propelled diving bird from the Late Cretaceous of Kansas. It was slightly larger than the largest living loon and had an unusually long neck. The feet were large, with only slight modifications for toe-rotation. In this and many other respects, Baptornis was a less specialized diving bird than the contemporaneous Hesperornis. However, examination of almost the entire skeleton shows that Baptornis is more closely related to Hesperornis than to any living diving bird and should be included in the order Hesperornithiformes. It should not be regarded as the earliest record of the Podicipediformes. We maintain Baptornis in a family Baptornithidae separate from Hesperornithidae. Both Hesperornis and Baptornis are in many respects very primitive birds, which in some characters appear to be little modified from Archaeopteryx.
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