Accipiter quartus

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Accipiter quartus
Systematics
Order : Birds of prey (Accipitriformes)
Family : Hawk species (Accipitridae)
Subfamily : Hawks and sparrowhawks (Accipitrinae)
Genre : Hawks and sparrowhawks ( Accipiter )
Type : Accipiter quartus
Scientific name
Accipiter quartus
Balouet & Olson , 1989

Accipiter quartus is an extinct bird of prey from the genus of the hawks and sparrowhawks ( Accipiter ) that wasnativeto New Caledonia . It is only known from subfossil remains from the Holocene . The type epithet quartus for "four" refers to the fact that Accipiter quartus was the fourth hawk species discovered in New Caledonia.

The holotype, which was discovered in 1986 in the Pindai Cave (21 ° 20′S, 164 ° 57′E) on the Nepoui Peninsula on the west coast of New Caledonia , consists of a left femur . The paratypes include the proximal and distal ends of the left and the distal end of the right tibiotarsus .

Accipiter quartus was the smallest hawk species in New Caledonia. The type material suggests a physique that was smaller and significantly less robust than that of the suspected females, but larger and more robust than that of the suspected males of the Sydney sparrow ( Accipiter cirrocephalus ). A possibly unique feature of the species is the presence of two pneumatic foramen (holes in the bone wall connecting the air sacs in the hollow interior of the bone and the air sac system outside the skeleton) in the surface of the trochanter , the larger of the two being directly below the articular surface of the femoral neck . There are three further, very small openings in the trochanteric surface between the two pneumatic foramen. All other types of Accipiter have just a single large window in this part of the thighbone.

The time and cause of the extinction of Accipiter quartus are unknown.

literature

  • Jean Cristophe Balouet, Storrs L. Olson: Fossil Birds from Late Quaternary Deposits in New Caledonia. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. Number 469.Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1989 ( online ; first description of the species there on page 7 f.)
  • Michael Walters, Julian Pender Hume: Extinct Birds. Poiser Monographes, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-140-815-725-1 (treatise of the species there on p. 80)