(paleontology) Any extinct avialan in the family Hesperornithidae.
2020, Alan Feduccia, Romancing the Birds and Dinosaurs, Universal Publishers (BrownWalker Press), page 83,
9. Cretaceous foot-propelled divers, the hesperornithids, were grouped cladistically with loons (Eocene) and grebes (Miocene) as a clade, which would require re-evolution of teeth from an edentulous ancestor.