Cécile Mourer-Chauviré

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Cécile Mourer-Chauviré (born November 5, 1939 in Lyon ) is a French paleornithologist . She is at the Geology Laboratory at the University of Lyon .

Life

Mourer-Chauviré was the second of six children to be born in Lyon. Her father was an ophthalmologist. In Lyon she attended elementary and secondary school. In 1955 she obtained the first part of the Baccalauréat and in 1956 the second. At the end of 1956, she went through a selection process, after which she was the only one of ten applicants to receive a place at the University of Lyon . She focused on the natural sciences and received various degrees in zoology, botany and geology.

She described some bird fossils found in Africa that otherwise come from South American faunas: Namibiavis senutae (2003), a hoatzin- like bird from the Lower Miocene of Namibia , and Lavocatavis africana , a terror bird from the Eocene of southwestern Algeria . Both are not able to fly (terror bird) or bad flyers (hoatzin), which poses a biogeographical problem. In the case of the terrorist bird, Mourer-Chauviré and colleagues suspected a subsequent loss of flight in a convergent development with their South American cousins ​​after spreading from South America or an island jumping in the then 1000 km wide South Atlantic.

She dealt with terror birds and their systematics in a number of works in the 1980s. She also studied the development of the inability to fly in birds and birds from the Eocene and Oligocene in France from the phosphorites in crevice fillings in Quercy in France, for example owls, terror birds.

In 2011 she described the earliest chicken bird ( Galliformes ) from Africa, from the Palaeogene of Namibia. In 2005, together with Jean-Christophe Balouet, she established the new family Sylviornithidae for the fossil big-footed hen Sylviornis neocaledoniae from New Caledonia, described by François Poplin in 1980 .

She published with Gerald Mayr from the Senckenburg Museum, among others . Among other things, they (and Herculano Alvarenga ) named a Hoatzin from the Miocene / Oligocene ( Hoazinavis ) found in Brazil . She also worked with Pierce Brodkorb .

In 1999 she proposed a theory that devastating volcanic eruptions had already led to a major wave of extinction on Réunion from 180,000 to 230,000 years ago.

Until 2000 she held the first secretary position of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution (SAPE). Her successor was Gerald Mayr .

Mourer-Chauviré is married to the prehistorian Roland Mourer. The couple has two sons, to whom Mourer-Chauviré dedicated the fossil parrot species Quercypsitta ivani and the fossil chicken Ameripodius alexis .

Dedication names

In 2012, Zbigniew M. Bocheński and Kenneth Campbell honored Mourer-Chauviré with the fossil owl species Asphaltoglaux cecileae ., The remains of which were discovered in the tar pits of La Brea . Other taxa named after Mourer-Chauviré are Tyto mourerchauvireae Pavia , 2004 and Oligosylphe mourerchauvireae Mayr & Smith, 2002 and Chauvireria balcanica Boev, 1997. In 2008 the herpetologists Edwin Nicholas Arnold and Roger Bourer named the extinct Skinkart Leiolopisma Mourer-Chauvé Ceciliae .

Fonts

  • Les oiseaux du pleistocene moyen et superieur de France. Documents des Laboratoires de Géologie (Laboratory of Geology Lyon) 1976.
  • Les Strigiformes (Aves) des Phosphorites du Quercy (France): Systématique, Biostratigraphie et Paléobiogéographie. In: Documents des Laboratoires de Géologie Lyon. 99, 1987, pp. 89-135.
  • Les Gruiformes (Aves) des Phosphorites du Quercy (France). 1. Sous-ordre Cariamae (Cariamidae et Phorusrhacidae). Systématique et biostratigraphie. In: Palaeovertebrata. 13, 1983, pp. 83-143.
  • Les Caprimulgiformes et les Coraciiformes de l'Eocène et de l'Oligocène des Phosphorites du Quercy et description de deux genres nouveaux de Podargidae et Nyctibiidae. In: H. Quellet (Ed.): Acta XIX congressus internationalis ornithologici. University of Ottawa Press, 1989, pp. 2047-2055.
  • The Galliformes (Aves) from the Phosphorites du Quercy (France): systematics and biostratigraphy. In: KE Campbell (Ed.): Papers in Avian Paleontology honoring Pierce Brodkorb. Nat. Hist. Mus.Los Angeles County., Sci. Ser., 36, 1992, pp. 67-95.
  • Dynamics of the avifauna during the Paleogene and the Early Neogene of France. Settling of the recent fauna. In: Acta zool. Cracov. 38, 1995, pp. 325-342.
  • The Messelornithidae (Aves: Gruiformes) from the Paleogene of France. In: DS Peters (ed.): Acta palaeornithologica. Courrier Research Institute Senckenberg, 181, 1995, pp. 95-105.
  • The relations entre les avifaunes du Tertiaire inférieur d'Europe et d'Amérique du Sud. In: Bull. Soc. Géol. France. 170, 1999, pp. 85-90.
  • Birds (Aves) from the Middle Miocene of Arrisdrift (Namibia). Preliminary study with description of two new genera: Amanuensis (Accipitriformes, Sagittariidae) and Namibiavis (Guriformes, Idiornithidae). In: M. Pickford, B. Senut (Eds.): Geology and Palaeobiology of the Central and Southern Namib. Vol. 2: Paleontology of the Orange River Valley. Ministry of Mines and Energy. Geological Survey of Namibia, Memoir 19, 2003, pp. 103-113.
  • with Albrecht Manegold and Gerald Mayr: Miocene Songbirds and the Composition of the European Passeriform Avifauna. In: Auk. 121, 2004, pp. 1155-1160.
  • as editor: L'évolution des oiseaux d'après de témoignage des fossiles: table ronde internationale du CNRS, Lyon-Villeurbanne, September 18-21, 1985. (= Documents des Laboratoires de Géologie. No. 99). 1987, ISBN 2-85454-045-X .

literature

  • Ursula B. Göhlich: Cécile Mourer-Chauviré - Life and Works. In: UB Göhlich, A. Kroh (Ed.): Paleornithological Research 2013 Proceedings of the 8th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution . Verlag Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, 2013, ISBN 978-3-902421-82-1 , pp. IX – XXX.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cécile Mourer-Chauviré, Rodolphe Tabuce, M'hammed Mahboubi, Mohammed Adaci, Mustapha Bensalah: A phororhacoid bird from the Eocene of Africa. In: Natural Sciences. 98, 2011, pp. 815-823.
  2. ^ Brian Switek: Transatlantic Terror Birds. wired Science July 9, 2011.
  3. ↑ C. Mourer-Chauviré: Première indication de la présence de Phorusrhacidés, famille d'oiseaux géants d'Amérique du Sud, dans le Tertiaire européen: Ameghinornis nov. gen. (Aves, Ralliformes) des Phosphorites du Quercy, France. In: Geobios. 14, 1981, pp. 637-647.
  4. ↑ Cecile Mourer-Chauviré, Martin Pickford, Brigitte Senut: The first Palaeogene galliform from Africa. In: J. Ornith. 152, 2011, pp. 617-622.
  5. ↑ Gerald Mayr, Herculano Alvarenga, Cécile Mourer-Chauviré: Out of Africa: Fossils shed light on the origin of the hoatzin, an iconic Neotropic bird. In: Natural Sciences. 98, 2011, pp. 961-966.
  6. ↑ on fossil darters from Africa: Fossil anhingas (Aves: Anhingidae) from Early Man sites of Hadar and Omo (Ethiopia) and Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). In: Géobios. 15, 1982, pp. 505-515.
  7. ^ C. Mourer-Chauviré, R. Bour, S. Ribes, F. Moutou: The Avifauna of Reunion Island (Mascarene Islands) at the Time of the Arrival of the First Europeans. In: SL Olson (Ed.): Avian Paleontology at the Close of the 20th Century: Proceedings of the 4th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, Washington, DC, 4-7 June 1996. Washington, DC 1999, p 1-38.
  8. ^ Fossil owls from the La Brea tar pits, 2012
  9. ^ Z. Boev: Chauvireria balcanica gen. N., Sp. n. (Phasianidae - Galliformes) from the Middle Villafranchian of Western Bulgaria. In: Geologica Balcanica. 27 (3-4), 1997, pp. 69-78.
  10. ^ E. Nicholas Arnold, Roger Bour: A new Nactus gecko (Gekkonidae) and a new Leiolopisma skink (Scincidae) from La Reunion, Indian Ocean, based on recent fossil remains and ancient DNA sequence. In: Zootaxa. 2008, 1705, pp. 40-50.
personal data
SURNAME Mourer-Chauviré, Cecile
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French paleornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyon