Miopica paradoxa
| Miopica paradoxa | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Pontium | ||||||||||||
| 7.2 to 5.3 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Miopica | ||||||||||||
| Kurochkin & Sobolev , 2004 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Miopica paradoxa | ||||||||||||
| Kurochkin & Sobolev, 2004 |
Miopica paradoxa is an extinct species of corvids (Corvidae) thatlivedin Europe in the late Miocene . It is the only representative of the genus Miopica .
features
Miopica paradoxa was a medium-sized raven bird and was about the size of a jay ( Garrulus glandarius ). In the dimensions of the skeleton, M. paradoxa shows overlaps with corvids of medium size living today, but no clear affinities to a recent taxon. M. paradoxa is most similar in osteological terms to the magpie ( pica pica ).
Systematics and taxonomy
Miopica paradoxa was described in 2004 by Evgeni Nikolajewitsch Kurotschkin and Denis Sobolew on the basis of a fossil proximal epiphysis of the right ulna from the Ukrainian Bilka ( NNPM 48-7113), which served as a holotype . A distal epyphyse of the same bone from Nowa Emetiwka (NNPM 25-1448) was used as additional material. Both fossils came from the middle Meotis, a local formation of the pontium and are therefore between 5.3 and 7.2 million years old. The authors chose the name Miopica for the genus, on the one hand to underline the temporal classification (Miocene) and on the other hand the similarity to the real magpies ( Pica ). The epithet paradoxa refers to the various characteristics of recent corvids that make up the remains of Miopica .
Miopica is one of the earliest known corvidae genera; only the genus Miocorvus, also from the European Miocene, and Miocitta from North America are of a similar age, but an osteological comparison has not yet been made. The relationships to other, living genera of the Corvidae are also unclear. Since the corvids are very similar to one another in osteological terms, without this providing information about the relationships, a systematic classification has not yet been possible. However, the age of the genus suggests an original representative and possible ancestor of Eurasian genera.
swell
literature
- EN Kurotschkin, DV Sobolew: Miopica paradoxa gen. Et sp. n. - Новые род И Вид Миоценовых Сорок. In: Vestnik zoologii 38 (6), 2004. pp. 87-90. ( PDF )