Cuba crane
| Cuba crane | ||||||||||
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Tibiotarsus of the Cuba crane (above) from the Museum of Natural History, Berlin |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||
| Middle Pleistocene to Holocene | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Antigone cubensis | ||||||||||
| ( Fischer & Stephan , 1971) |
The Cuban crane ( Antigone cubensis , Syn : Grus cubensis ) is an extinct crane species that occurred in Cuba from the Middle Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene . The extensive type material, which consists of over 450 skull and skeletal remains, was discovered in the summer of 1967 by the German palaeontologist Karlheinz Fischer from the Museum of Natural History at the Humboldt University in Berlin and his colleagues from the University of Havana in the Pío Domingo karst cave near the Discovered in the village of Sumidero in the western Cuban province of Pinar del Río . Further material comes from the Sandoval cave near Caimito in the province of Artemisa , from the Indio cave near San José des las Lajas in the province of Mayabeque and from the location of Las Breas de San Felipe in the province of Matanzas .
features
The Cuban crane was larger than the whooping crane ( Grus americana ), the sandhill crane ( Antigone canadensis ) and the also extinct Bermuda crane ( Grus latipes ). Other distinguishing features include a much broader bill that burly lower leg and the reduced breast and flight skeletal what a flightlessness suggests. The humerus size is on average the same as Grus latipes , but the humeral head is lower and not as protruding. The deltoid ridge appears lower, but longer. The carpometacarpus is somewhat shorter and less developed. The tarsometatarsus is larger, longer, and stronger overall. Compared to the crane ( Grus grus ) the skull is significantly larger and the cranial skull somewhat wider. The sternum shows only a moderate hollowing out of the crista for the windpipe .
Possible ancestor
In 2001, Storrs Lovejoy Olson and Pamela C. Rasmussen described the remains of a large species of crane from the Pliocene deposits at the Lee Creek Mine fossil site in North Carolina . They provisionally designated the species as Grus aff. antigone . The length of the tibiotarsus corresponds roughly to that of the Sarus crane ( Antigone antigone ). In 1995, Steven D. Emslie described the tibiotarsus of a large Pleistocene crane species from the Leisy Shell Pit fossil deposit in Hillsborough County , Florida . This bone also corresponds to the size of the tibiotarsus of the Sarus crane. However, it also shows similarities with the tibiotarsus of the Cuban crane. The Cuban paleontologist William Suárez suspects that a North American crane similar to the Sarus crane spread via Florida to Cuba and lost its ability to fly there.
Loss of flight ability
Cuba was a smaller island in the Pleistocene than it is today. The pluvial time created suitable living conditions in the swamp regions. Since there were no large predatory mammals as predators, this species of crane was able to save its energy for flight performance and thus gradually lost its ability to fly. At the same time, there was an increase in body size and weight.
die out
The Cuban crane may become extinct in the early Holocene when the first humans colonized Cuba and flightless birds such as the walleye species Nesotrochis picapicensis but also the Cuban crane were easy prey. Today the subspecies Antigone canadensis nesiotes of the sandhill crane occurs in Cuba.
literature
- Karlheinz Fischer & Burkhard Stephan: A flightless crane (Grus cubensis n. Sp.) From the Pleistozan of Cuba - an osteology of the crane family (Gruidae). Scientific journal of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe, Vol. 20, 1971, pp. 541-592
- Storrs L. Olson: Zoogeography in the Caribbean: The 1975 Leidy Medal Symposium . Ed .: Frank Gill (= Special Publication 13 ). Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1978, ISBN 1-4223-1785-4 , A paleontological perspective of West Indian birds and mammals, pp. 99-117 [106] ( see edu [PDF]).
- William Suárez: The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba , Zootaxa 4780 (1), May 22, 2020, pp. 1–53. doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.4780.1.1
Web links
- Artistic reconstruction of the Cuba crane by Peter Schouten from the book End of the Megafauna by Ross DE MacPhee , 2018
Individual evidence
- ^ SL Olson & PC Rasmussen: Miocene and Pliocene birds from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina. In: CE Ray & DJ Bohaska (Eds.): Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, III. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 90, 2001, pp. 233-365.
- ^ SD Emslie: An early Irvingtonian avifauna from Leisey Shell Pit, Florida. In: RC Hulbert, Jr., GS Morgan, SD Webb (Eds.): Paleontology and Geology of the Leisey Shell Pits: Earle Pleistocene of Florida. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History, vol. 67 (1) 10, 1995, pp. 299-344.
- ^ A b W. Suárez: Biogeografía de las aves fósiles de Cuba. In: M. Iturralde-Vinent (ed.): Origen y Evolución del Caribe y sus biotas Marinas y Terrestres. Centro Nacional de Información Geológica, La Habana, Cuba., 2004