''Neanis'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

bird 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 lightweig ...

probably related to

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions ...

s and

toucan Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five g ...

s. It contains at least one species, ''N. schucherti''; ''N. kistneri'' resembles this, but it probably belongs to a distinct genus and may not be closely related. Both are known from the Late

Wasatchian The Wasatchian 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 55,400,000 to 50,300,000 years BP lasting . It is usually ...

(51-52 MYA) stratum of the Early

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...

Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sediments are deposited in very f ...

of the Western-Central USA. ''"N." kistneri'' is known from one fairly complete, but not very well preserved skeleton, whereas of ''N. schucherti'' even less material was found. The systematic assignment of the genus (apart from the problems posed by ''"N." kistneri'') is not well resolved. Initially, the genus (at that time only comprising the type species) was considered to be a

passeriform A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

. ''"N." kistneri'' was described 60 years later as a species of the genus '' Primobucco'', which then thought to be related to woodpeckers because it had a

zygodactyl In biology, dactyly is the arrangement of digits (fingers and toes) on the hands, feet, or sometimes wings of a tetrapod animal. It comes from the Greek word δακτυλος (''dáktylos'') = "finger". Sometimes the ending "-dactylia" is use ...

foot or at least could turn the outer toe backwards; some years later, several genera (including ''Primobucco'' and ''Neanis'') were put into a new

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, the Primobucconidae, which were thought to be a primitive kind of

puffbird The puffbirds and their relatives in the near passerine family Bucconidae are tropical tree-dwelling insectivorous birds that are found from South America up to Mexico. Together with their closest relatives, the jacamars, they form a divergent ...

. However, it is now known that the primobucconids as originally defined were a

paraphyletic In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...

assemblage including taxa as diverse as Coliiformes and

Coraciiformes The Coraciiformes are a group of usually colourful birds including the kingfishers, the bee-eaters, the rollers, the motmots, and the todies. They generally have syndactyly, with three forward-pointing toes (and toes 3 & 4 fused at their bas ...

. Indeed, the only remaining genus of the family is '' Primobucco'' (without ''kistneri''), and the family as such has been moved to the

. The closest relatives of ''Neanis schucherti'' may be the

Piciformes Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes , the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of ...

, or it might be an ancestral form in the piciform-coraciiform radiation. ''"N." kistneri'' seems more closely related to piciform birds. ''Neanis schucherti '' appears to share some traits with '' Hassiavis'' and might even be a cypselomorph

References

* Shufeldt, W. (1913): Fossil feathers and some heretofore undescribed fossil birds. ''J. Geology'' 21: 628–652. Eocene birds Prehistoric bird genera Piciformes Extinct birds of North America {{paleo-bird-stub