Illustration of Quipollornis koniberi, Owlet-nightjar.
Image: Frank Knight
Source: Museum Victoria
Cast of Quipollornis koniberi.
Image: Jon Augier
Source: Museum Victoria
Quipollornis was an ancestor of the modern-day owlet-nightjars, small nocturnal birds related to frogmouths and nightjars. Quipollornis is known only from a single fossilised flattened skeleton. It probably hunted by ‘hawking’ for moths and insects over tree-lined rivers and lakes 15 million years ago in central New South Wales.