Australopicus nelsonmandelai
| Australopicus nelsonmandelai | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Early Pliocene | ||||||||||||
| approx. 5 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Australopicus | ||||||||||||
| Manegold & Louchart , 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Australopicus nelsonmandelai | ||||||||||||
| Manegold & Louchart, 2012 |
Australopicus nelsonmandelai is an extinct species of the woodpeckers (Picidae). The only representative of the genus Australopicus lived in the early Pliocene in what is now South Africa , when forest landscapes still predominated there. The short legs of the species and their relationships suggest a tree dweller.
The fossil remains of Australopicus nelsonmandelai were found in the Langebaanweg fossil deposit and described in 2012 by Albrecht Manegold and Antoine Louchart as a new species and genus, the name of which is said to honor the South African politician Nelson Mandela . Historically, the species is close to the genera Celeus , Dryocopus and Mulleripicus and probably shares a common ancestor with them. It thus represented a side branch of the woodpeckers that is extinct in today's Africa. Australopicus probably disappeared together with the forests of the Cape region .
features
Australopicus nelsonmandelai was, compared to modern woodpeckers, a medium-sized member of the Picidae family. The species had strong, 17.9–19.9 mm long carpometacarpi and short, robust running bones of around 20–25 mm in length. It reached about the size of a great spotted woodpecker ( Dendrocopus major ) or a Carolina woodpecker ( Melanerpes carolinus ), but was overall stockier built. So it was larger than any recent African woodpeckers except the Erdspechts ( Geocolaptes olivaceus ).
Fossil material and location
All Australopicus fossils were found in the Varswater Formation of the Langebaanweg fossil deposit in South Africa . The Langeberg quartz sand in which they were found is dated to the early Pliocene at around 5 million years ago. The traditional bone material includes ulnae , barrel bones, carpometacarpi and the fragment of a raven bones .
Way of life
The short, sturdy running bones of the species suggest an arboreal way of life for Australopicus . This assumption is not only supported by the physique, but also by other fossil finds from Langebaanweg, which unearthed a multitude of species whose relatives now live in forests. Woodpecker genera such as Dryocopus , Celeus and Mulleripicus , which are considered the closest relatives of Australopicus , are also predominantly forest and tree inhabitants. They feed on ants or beetle larvae living under the bark . Australopicus' habitat probably consisted of a mixture of gallery forests or parkland and fynbos before the former disappeared due to a drier climate.
Systematics and taxonomy
The genus Australopicus and its only species A. nelsonmandelai were described in 2012 by the paleontologists Albrecht Manegold and Antoine Louchart . The first description appeared in June of that year in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology . The generic name is made up of the Latin australis for "south" and picus for "woodpecker". The two authors dedicated the specific epithet to the former South African President Nelson Mandela , who celebrated his 94th birthday that same month.
Phylogenetic analyzes by Manegold and Louchart based on fine features of the skeleton classify Australopicus as close relatives of the genera Celeus from Central and South America and Dryocopus from Eurasia , North and South America. Australopicus is basal in one of the three genera formed Monophylum . DNA analyzes assign Celeus and Dryocopus to the Southeast Asian genus Mulleripicus as the closest relative. This suggests that the ancestor of Australopicus advanced from Eurasia to southern Africa when this region was more forested than it is today. This also means that the woodpeckers colonized Africa independently at least four times.
swell
literature
- Albrecht Manegold, Antoine Louchart: Biogeographic and Paleoenvironmental Implications of a New Woodpecker Species (Aves, Picidae) from the Early Pliocene of South Africa. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32 (4), 2012. doi : 10.1080 / 02724634.2012.664597 , pp. 926-938.