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Afrocygnus
''Afrocygnus'' is an extinct genus of swan, which lived during the Late Miocene, and perhaps up to the Late Pliocene, in what is today North Africa. The only genus of swan known in Africa, aside from fragmentary Pleistocene remains found in East Africa and from occasional observations of vagrant European swans along the Mediterranean coast, it lived in what was during the Miocene a damp wetland spanning from Libya to Chad, alongside the Antracothere '' Libycosaurus'' and the early Homininae ''Sahelanthropus''. The genus is considered as the sister taxon of the extant genus '' Cygnus''. Fossils of the genus have been uncovered in the Sahabi Formation of Cyrenaica in Libya, and in the Toros-Menalla locality in the Djurab Desert of Northern Chad. History and naming Fossils associated with ''Afrocygnus'' were first described in 1987 by Peter Ballmann from remains found in the Sahabi Formation of Libya. They were originally identified as an indeterminate Anseriform. In 2005, a new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2005 In Paleontology
Protozoans Diatoms Plants Conifers Angiosperms Fungi Arthropoda Arachnids Insects Xiphosurans * Fossils of '' Lunataspis'', the earliest known xiphosuran, are discovered in Canada. It was not given a formal description until 2008, however. Plesiosaurs New taxa Archosauromorphs Newly named Non-Avian dinosaurs Data courtesy of George Olshevsky's dinosaur genera list. Newly named birds Newly named pterosaurs Synapsids Non-mammalian Footnotes Complete author list As science becomes more collaborative, papers with large numbers of authors are becoming more common. To prevent the deformation of the tables, these footnotes list the contributors to papers that erect new genera and have many authors. References {{DEFAULTSORT:2005 In Paleontology 2000s in paleontology Paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holoce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anseriformes
Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. Most modern species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. With the exception of screamers, males have penises, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves. Due to their aquatic nature, most species are web-footed. Evolution Anseriformes are one of only two types of modern bird to be confirmed present during the Mesozoic alongside the other dinosaurs, and in fact were among the very few birds to survive their extinction, along with their cousins the galliformes. These two groups only occupied two ecological niches during the Mesozoic, living in water and on the ground, while the toothed enantiornithes were the dominant bir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cécile Mourer-Chauviré
Cécile Mourer-Chauviré (born 1939) is a French paleontologist specializing in birds of the Eocene and the Oligocene. In her early career, she discovered with her husband the Laang Spean cave site of prehistoric humans in Cambodia. Career Cécile Chauviré was born on 5 November 1939 in Lyon, France. She studied at University of Lyon. Her early work was on large Quaternary mammals. She then proceeded in 1961 to a doctorate in Centre national de la recherche scientifique focusing on Pleistocene birds, a topic few at the time studied in France or Europe. Following her marriage in 1964 to Roland Mourer, she relocated to Cambodia where he was assigned by the French military as a "coopérant" in Kampong Chhnang. In 1965 she was appointed as a geology professor at Royal University of Phnom Penh, a post she held until the civil war in 1970. During this time she discovered with her husband the Laang Spean cave site of prehistoric humans.Sophady, Heng, et al. "Laang Spean cave (Batta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anseriform
Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. Most modern species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. With the exception of screamers, males have penises, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves. Due to their aquatic nature, most species are web-footed. Evolution Anseriformes are one of only two types of modern bird to be confirmed present during the Mesozoic alongside the other dinosaurs, and in fact were among the very few birds to survive their extinction, along with their cousins the galliformes. These two groups only occupied two ecological niches during the Mesozoic, living in water and on the ground, while the toothed enantiornithes were the dominant birds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sahelanthropus
''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'' is an extinct species of the Homininae (African apes) dated to about , during the Miocene epoch. The species, and its genus ''Sahelanthropus'', was announced in 2002, based mainly on a partial cranium, nicknamed ''Toumaï'', discovered in northern Chad. ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'' lived close to the time of the chimpanzee–human divergence, possibly related to '' Orrorin'', a species of Homininae that lived about one million years later. It may have been ancestral to both humans and chimpanzees (which would place it in the tribe Hominini), or alternatively an early member of the tribe Gorillini. In 2020, the femur was analyzed, and it was found that ''Sahelanthropus'' was not bipedal, casting some doubt on its position as a human ancestor, but this was refuted in 2022. Taxonomy Discovery Funded by the Mission Paléoanthropologique Franco–Tchadienne, Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye, Fanoné Gongdibé, Mahamat Adoum, and Alain Beauvilain identified t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Bird Genera
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cenozoic Birds Of Africa
The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configuration of continents. It is the latest of three geological eras since complex life evolved, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. It started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor. The Cenozoic is also known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammalsthe eutherians (placentals) in the northern hemisphere and the metatherians (marsupials, now mainly restricted to Australia) in the southern hemisphere. The extinction of many groups allowed mammals and birds to greatly diversify so that lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil Taxa Described In 2005
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 2005
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, where holotype and isotypes are often pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same gathering. A holotype is not necessarily " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Djurab Desert
The Djurab Desert (''Djourab'', ) is a desert in northern Chad. Part of the greater Sahara desert, it makes up much of the area of Chad's Borkou region. The Koro Toro settlement and maximum security prison is situated on the eastern boundary of the desert. The closest major settlements are Salal to the south and Faya-Largeau to the northeast. To the west is the Ténéré desert (the Erg of Bilma) of western Chad and Niger, to the north are the Tibesti Mountains of the central Sahara. Aeolian deflation in the northern subbasin formed the desert with an arid conditions. Desert reached through Sahara and reduced Lake Chad. Many fossils have been found in this desert, ''Kossom Bougoudi'' and ''Toros-Menalla'' being among the most bountiful fossil-bearing areas. A team led by Michel Brunet, from the University of Poitiers, excavated in the Djurab desert during the mid-1990s. In 2001, the type fossil of ''Sahelanthropus tchadensis'', a hominid species of about 7 million years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between longitudes E16 and E25, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, also known as ''Pentapolis'' ("Five Cities") in antiquity, was part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into ''Libya Pentapolis'' and ''Libya Sicca''. During the Islamic period, the area came to be known as ''Barqa'', after the city of Barca. Cyrenaica became an Italian colony in 1911. After the 1934 formation of Libya, the Cyrenaica province was designated as one of the three primary provinces of the country. During World War II, it fell under British military and civil administration from 1943 until 1951, and finally in the Kingdom of Libya from 1951 until 1963. The region that used to be Cyrenaica officially until 1963 has formed sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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