Oarsopods
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Obsolete systematic group The taxon dealt with here is not part of the systematics presented in the German-language Wikipedia. More information can be found in the article text. |
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Northern gannet ( Morus bassanus ) |
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| Pelecaniformes | ||||||||||||||
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The oarsopods (Pelecaniformes) are traditionally an order of birds (Aves), which include typical water birds such as cormorants , pelicans and boobies . The name-giving feature of the group is the rudder foot, in which all toes are connected by webbed feet. However, following a revision of the bird system based on molecular data, the copepods are no longer considered to be monophyletic .
features
The rudders are named after the construction of their feet, in which all four toes are connected by a web of webs, including the forward and inward facing hallux (1st toe), which points back in land birds. Another common feature is the lack of a brood spot . All rowefoots have featherless skin in the throat area, which forms a more or less large throat pouch. Nostrils are closed or extremely stunted.
All species of this order catch their food, which consists mainly of fish , under water. While in darter and cormorants only the feathers below the cover plumage are water-repellent, in the other members of the order this is the case for the entire plumage.
Reproduction
It is typical for the bird species of this order that they establish large nesting colonies. They are often found on remote islands and cliffs. Most species build compact nests that are built by both partners. The young are helpless when hatching and are fed by the parent birds with choked up food.
Tribal history
Since the unambiguous assignment to the rowefooters is often unclear even with the recent families (see chapter Systematics ), this applies even more to the fossil representatives. Only very fragmentary traces of the earliest representatives have survived, so that even their rough classification is controversial. The genus Elopteryx was first described as a coelurosaur of the Cretaceous period , while others identified it as a bird, sometimes even as a very early representative of the booby.
The most important fossil families of the copepods are the Pelagornithidae and the Plotopteridae.
Pelagornithidae
The Pelagornithidae were large seabirds that were distributed worldwide from the Eocene (possibly Paleocene ) to the Miocene . They had wingspans of up to six meters ( osteodontornis ) and their habitus was reminiscent of albatrosses . Their similarities with tubular noses go so far that some paleontologists see them as possible evidence of a common origin of tubular noses and copepods. The representative best known for an extensive but mostly fragmentary fossil record is Osteodontornis , which lived in the northern hemisphere from the early Oligocene to the Pliocene and was one of the largest birds of its time.
Plotopteridae
While the actual affiliation of the Pelagornithidae to the coarse pods remains questionable, the Plotopteridae were almost certainly relatives of the modern cormorants and darters. In convergent evolution , they had developed similarities to penguins , but to which they were not related. These flightless sea birds lived on the coasts of the North Pacific from the Eocene to the Miocene.
Recent families
Pelicans, frigate birds and tropical birds have already been documented from the Eocene (although some paleontologists deny that the fossil finds belonged to these families); in the Oligocene the boobies appear, in the Miocene the cormorants and darters appear.
Systematics
The rowers were first set up in 1867 by Thomas Henry Huxley as a family. He called the order Dysporomorphae - later the name Steganopodes was also common. Traditionally the tropical birds (Phaethontidae), the frigate birds (Fregatidae), the pelicans (Pelecanidae), the boobies (Sulidae), the cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae) and the darters (Anhingidae) were assigned to the order. The affiliation of tropical birds has long been questioned. Chandler said that they were actually very different relatives of the seagulls - a view that was taken up in 1978 by Howell, who pointed out anatomical similarities between tropical birds and terns . The frigate birds, on the other hand, have been viewed time and again as relatives of the tube noses since 1888 . Recent analyzes confirm that the tropical birds are not related to the other families or to any other bird order. For this reason, they have recently been put into their own order, the Phaethontiformes.
The closest relatives of the pelicans, on the other hand, are the shoebill ( Balaeniceps rex ) and the hammerhead ( Scopus umbretta ), two birds that are native to tropical Africa and are classed as walking birds (Ciconiiformes) in the traditional system . Sister group of the clade formed by all three taxa are the herons (Ardeidae) and the ibises and spoonbills (Threskiornithidae). Sister group of the clade formed by all five taxa are the remaining copepods. In order to get back to monophyletic taxa, the International Ornithological Committee assigns all families of the walking birds except for the storks (Ciconiidae) to the Pelecaniformes. The American Ornithologists' Union , on the other hand, places the shoebill and the hammer head in the previously monogeneric family Pelecanidae and these as well as herons, ibises and spoonbills in the order Pelecaniformes, which, with the exception of the pelicans, has a completely different composition. The remaining rowers are placed in the new order Suliformes .
The probable relationships with the new names of the AOU are shown in the following cladogram. The taxa traditionally assigned to the coarse pods are highlighted in bold:
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literature
- Bryan Nelson : Pelicans, Cormorants and their relatives. Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-857727-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ P. Brodkorb: Catalog of fossil birds. In: Bulletin of the Florida State Museum of Biological Science. 1963, No. 7, pp. 179-293.
- ^ SL Olson: A selective synopsis of the fossil record of birds. In: D. Farner, JR King, K. Parkes: Avian Biology 8 . Academic Press, New York 1985.
- ^ AC Chandler: A study of the structure of feathers, with references to their taxonomic significance. In: University of California Publications, Zoology. 1916, no.13.
- ^ TR Howell: Ecology and reproductive behavior of the gray gull of Chile and of the red-tailed tropicbird and white tern of Midway Island. In: National Geographic Research Reports, 1969 Projects . 1978, pp. 261-773.
- ^ RW Shufeldt: Observations upon the osteology of the order Tubinares and Steganopodes. In: US National Museum, Proceedings II . 1888, pp. 253-315.
- ↑ a b Per GP Ericson et al.: Diversification of Neoaves: integration of molecular sequence data and fossils. Biol. Lett. doi : 10.1098 / rsbl.2006.0523
- ↑ a b Hackett et al: A Phylogenomic Study of Birds Reveals Their Evolutionary History. In: Science. June 27, 2008: Vol. 320. no. 5884, pp. 1763–1768 doi : 10.1126 / science.1157704
- ^ Frank Gill and Minturn Wright: BIRDS OF THE WORLD Recommended English Names. Princeton University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-7136-7904-2 .
- ↑ a b WorldBirdNames.org IOC World Bird List ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b AOU Committee on Classification and Nomenclature (North & Middle America) Proposals 2008-C (PDF; 109 kB)
- ^ Joseph W. Brown, John Harshman: Pelecaniformes. Version 27 June 2008 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Pelecaniformes/57152/2008.06.27 in The Tree of Life Web Project
