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Lithornis
''Lithornis'' is a genus of extinct paleognathous birds. Although ''Lithornis'' was able to fly well, their closest relatives are the extant tinamous (which are poor flyers) and ratites (which are flightless birds). Fossils of ''Lithornis'' are known with certainty from the Upper Paleocene through the Middle Eocene, but their fossil record may extend to the late Cretaceous. "''Lithornis''" is from ancient Greek for "stone bird", as it is one of the first fossil birds to become widely discussed. Presumably closely related genera are ''Paracathartes'' and '' Pseudocrypturus''. Species Six species have been recognized in modern times; undescribed ones are also likely to exist. The supposed tarsometatarsus piece from which ''"Lithornis" emuinus'' was described is actually a humerus fragment of the giant pseudotooth bird ''Dasornis''.Houde, P. (1988) ''Lithornis celetius'' ''L. celetius'' is from the Bangtail Quarry, Sedan Quadrangle, Park County, Montana, USA, and was describe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithornis
''Lithornis'' is a genus of extinct paleognathous birds. Although ''Lithornis'' was able to fly well, their closest relatives are the extant tinamous (which are poor flyers) and ratites (which are flightless birds). Fossils of ''Lithornis'' are known with certainty from the Upper Paleocene through the Middle Eocene, but their fossil record may extend to the late Cretaceous. "''Lithornis''" is from ancient Greek for "stone bird", as it is one of the first fossil birds to become widely discussed. Presumably closely related genera are ''Paracathartes'' and '' Pseudocrypturus''. Species Six species have been recognized in modern times; undescribed ones are also likely to exist. The supposed tarsometatarsus piece from which ''"Lithornis" emuinus'' was described is actually a humerus fragment of the giant pseudotooth bird ''Dasornis''.Houde, P. (1988) ''Lithornis celetius'' ''L. celetius'' is from the Bangtail Quarry, Sedan Quadrangle, Park County, Montana, USA, and was describe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleognathae
Palaeognathae (; ) is a infraclass of birds, called paleognaths, within the class Aves of the clade Archosauria. It is one of the two extant infraclasses of birds, the other being Neognathae, both of which form Neornithes. Palaeognathae contains five extant branches of flightless lineages (plus two extinct clades), termed ratites, and one flying lineage, the Neotropic tinamous.Wetmore, A. (1960) A Classification for Birds of the World. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution) 139: 1–37. There are 47 species of tinamous, five of kiwis (''Apteryx''), three of cassowaries (''Casuarius''), one of emus ('' Dromaius'') (another became extinct in historic times), two of rheas (''Rhea'') and two of ostrich (''Struthio'').Clements, J. C. ''et al''. (2010) Recent research has indicated that paleognaths are monophyletic but the traditional taxonomic split between flightless and flighted forms is incorrect; tinamous are within the ratite radiation, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dasornis
''Dasornis'' is a genus of the prehistoric pseudotooth birds. These were probably rather close relatives of either pelicans and storks, or of waterfowl, and are here placed in the order Odontopterygiformes to account for this uncertainty. Almost all known material of this bird is from some 50 million years ago (Ma) and has been recovered from the Ypresian (Early Eocene) London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey (England). The exception are a few approximately 45 Ma-old remains from the Lutetian (Middle Eocene, MP11-13) of Etterbeek (Belgium) that are only tentatively included here, and some even more conjectural remains from outside Europe (see below). Description Like those of its relatives, the thin-walled bones of ''Dasornis'' broke easily and thus very few fossils – though still far more than of the average pseudotooth bird genus – are in decent condition. Among these is a superbly preserved partial skull that has been of crucial importance in sorting out the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Union Formation
The Fort Union Formation is a geologic unit containing sandstones, shales, and coal beds in Wyoming, Montana, and parts of adjacent states. In the Powder River Basin, it contains important economic deposits of coal, uranium, and coalbed methane. Description The Fort Union is mostly of Paleocene age and represents a time of extensive swamps as well as fluvial and lacustrine conditions. The rocks are more sandy in southwestern Wyoming and more coal-bearing in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana, reflecting a general change from rivers and lakes in the west to swamps in the east, but all three environments were present at various times in most locations. Coal in the Fort Union in the Powder River Basin occurs mainly in the Tongue River Member, where as many as 32 coal seams total more than 300 feet in thickness. One such bed, the Wyodak Coal near Gillette, Wyoming, is as much as thick. Most of the coals in the Fort Union Formation are ranked subbituminous.''Cretaceous and Te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ratite
A ratite () is any of a diverse group of flightless, large, long-necked, and long-legged birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae. Kiwi, the exception, are much smaller and shorter-legged and are the only nocturnal extant ratites. The systematics of and relationships within the paleognath clade have been in flux. Previously, all the flightless members had been assigned to the order Struthioniformes, which is more recently regarded as containing only the ostrich. The modern bird superorder Palaeognathae consists of ratites and the flighted Neotropic tinamous (compare to Neognathae). Unlike other flightless birds, the ratites have no keel on their sternum — hence the name, from the Latin ''ratis'' ( raft, a vessel which has no keel - in contradistinction to extant flighted birds with a keel). Without this to anchor their wing muscles, they could not have flown even if they developed suitable wings. Ratites are a paraphyletic group; tinamous fall within them, and are the sister ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudotooth Bird
The Pelagornithidae, commonly called pelagornithids, pseudodontorns, bony-toothed birds, false-toothed birds or pseudotooth birds, are a prehistoric family of large seabirds. Their fossil remains have been found all over the world in rocks dating between the Early Paleocene and the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary. Most of the common names refer to these birds' most notable trait: tooth-like points on their beak's edges, which, unlike true teeth, contained Volkmann's canals and were outgrowths of the premaxillary and mandibular bones. Even "small" species of pseudotooth birds were the size of albatrosses; the largest ones had wingspans estimated at 5–6 metres (15–20 ft) and were among the largest flying birds ever to live. They were the dominant seabirds of most oceans throughout most of the Cenozoic, and modern humans apparently missed encountering them only by a tiny measure of evolutionary time: the last known pelagornithids were contemporaries of ''Homo habilis'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiffanian
The Tiffanian North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 60,200,000 to 56,800,000 years BP lasting . It is usually considered to overlap the Selandian and Thanetian within the Paleocene. The Tiffanian is preceded by the Torrejonian and followed by the Clarkforkian NALMA stages. Substages The Tiffanian is considered to contain the following substages: *Ti6: Lower boundary source of the base of the Tiffanian (approximate). *Ti5 Lower boundary source of the base of the Tiffanian (approximate) and upper boundary source of the base of the Clarkforkian (approximate). *Ti4: Lower boundary source of the base of the Tiffanian (approximate) and upper boundary source of the base of the Clarkforkian (approximate). *Ti3: Lower boundary source of the base of the Tiffanian (approximate) and upper boundary source of the base of the Clarkforkian (approximate). *Ti2: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Type Locality (biology)
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the defining features of that particular taxon. In older usage (pre-1900 in botany), a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. A taxon is a scientifically named grouping of organisms with other like organisms, a set that includes some organisms and excludes others, based on a detailed published description (for example a species description) and on the provision of type material, which is usually available to scientists for examination in a major museum research collection, or similar institution. Type specimen According to a precise set of rules laid down in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), the scientific name of every taxon is almost al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleocene
The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''palaiós'' meaning "old" and the Eocene Epoch (which succeeds the Paleocene), translating to "the old part of the Eocene". The epoch is bracketed by two major events in Earth's history. The K–Pg extinction event, brought on by an asteroid impact and possibly volcanism, marked the beginning of the Paleocene and killed off 75% of living species, most famously the non-avian dinosaurs. The end of the epoch was marked by the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which was a major climatic event wherein about 2,500–4,500 gigatons of carbon were released into the atmosphere and ocean systems, causing a spike in global temperatures and ocean acidification. In the Paleocene, the continents of the Northern Hemisphere were still connected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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