Palaelodidae
| Palaelodidae | ||||||||||||
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Palaelodus ambiguus , skeleton in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Oligocene to Middle Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Palaelodidae | ||||||||||||
| Stejneger , 1885 |
The Palaelodidae are an extinct family of flamingo-like birds that lived from the Lower Oligocene to the Lower Pliocene . The family includes two genera, Megapaloelodus and Palaelodus . Fossils of the family from the lower Miocene were found mainly near Saint-Gérand-le-Puy in the Allier department in France.
Fossil record
In total, over 9300 bones were found there, which were assigned to over 530 individuals and three types of Palaelodus . In addition, 63 bones from 13 individuals of Megapaloelodus were excavated. Megapaloelodus finds from the Miocene and the Lower Pliocene are also from North America.
In 1998, two new species of Palaelodus were described, the fossil remains of which were found in northern South Australia and which extended the taxon's life to the mid- Pleistocene . Fossils from Egypt date from the early Oligocene .
Paleobiology
The Palaelodidae probably lived, similar to flamingos, on the shores of salt lakes and brackish water regions and had a filtering colander, which was, however, much more primitive than that of the flamingos and more similar to that of the plankton- eating alks and penguin species .
The Palaelodidae are now considered to be a mosaic form of the sister groups flamingos and grebes , as they have characteristics of both taxa. They have the high lower jaw of the flamingos, while their skull proportions are still similar to those of the grebes. Their leg skeletons show features that suggest a swimming way of life, such as that of the grebes.
swell
- Alan Feduccia : The Origin and Evolution of the Birds. Pages 201-204, 2nd ed., Yale University Press, New Haven / London 1999, ISBN 0-300-07861-7 .
- ^ Loye Miller (1950): A Miocene Flamingo from California. PDF
- ^ RF Baird; P. Vickers-Rich: Palaelodus (Aves: Palaelodidae) from the Middle to Late Cainozoic of Australia. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, Volume 22, Issue 2 1998, pages 135 - 151 abstract
- ↑ Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Flamingos and grebes: an example of extremely convergent development in closely related groups of birds
