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Dromornis
''Dromornis'' is a genus of large to enormous prehistoric birds native to Australia during the Oligocene to Pliocene epochs. The species were flightless, possessing greatly reduced wing structures but with large legs, similar to the modern ostrich or emu. They were likely to have been predominantly, if not exclusively, herbivorous browsers. The male of the largest species, ''Dromornis stirtoni'', is a contender for the tallest and heaviest bird, and possibly exhibited aggressive territorial behaviour. They belong to the family Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds known as mihirungs. Taxonomy The genus was erected to separate a new species, '' Dromornis australis'', from the previously described ''Dinornis'' (giant moas), another lineage of ancient large and flightless birds found in New Zealand that was earlier described by Richard Owen in 1843. A femur that was forwarded to England, probably a dromornithid and since lost, suggested an Australian genus, but Owen withheld publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dromornis Stirtoni
''Dromornis'' is a genus of large to enormous Fossil birds, prehistoric birds native to Australia during the Oligocene to Pliocene epochs. The species were flightless, possessing greatly reduced wing structures but with large legs, similar to the modern ostrich or emu. They were likely to have been predominantly, if not exclusively, herbivorous browsers. The male of the largest species, ''Dromornis stirtoni'', is a contender for the tallest and heaviest bird, and possibly exhibited aggressive territorial behaviour. They belong to the family Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds known as mihirungs. Taxonomy The genus was erected to separate a new species, ''Dromornis australis'', from the previously described ''Dinornis'' (giant moas), another lineage of ancient large and flightless birds found in New Zealand that was earlier described by Richard Owen in 1843. A femur that was forwarded to England, probably a dromornithid and since lost, suggested an Australian genus, but Owen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dromornis Australis
''Dromornis'' is a genus of large to enormous prehistoric birds native to Australia during the Oligocene to Pliocene epochs. The species were flightless, possessing greatly reduced wing structures but with large legs, similar to the modern ostrich or emu. They were likely to have been predominantly, if not exclusively, herbivorous browsers. The male of the largest species, ''Dromornis stirtoni'', is a contender for the tallest and heaviest bird, and possibly exhibited aggressive territorial behaviour. They belong to the family Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds known as mihirungs. Taxonomy The genus was erected to separate a new species, '' Dromornis australis'', from the previously described ''Dinornis'' (giant moas), another lineage of ancient large and flightless birds found in New Zealand that was earlier described by Richard Owen in 1843. A femur that was forwarded to England, probably a dromornithid and since lost, suggested an Australian genus, but Owen withheld publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dromornithidae
Dromornithidae, known as mihirungs (after Tjapwuring ''Mihirung paringmal'', "giant bird") and informally as thunder birds or demon ducks, were a clade of large, flightless Australian birds of the Oligocene through Pleistocene epochs. All are now extinct. They were long classified in Struthioniformes (the ratites), but are now usually classified as galloanseres. Dromornithids were part of the Australian megafauna. One species, '' Dromornis stirtoni'', was tall. Only a single species, ''Genyornis newtoni'' survived into the Late Pleistocene. They are thought to have been herbivorous.McInerney, P. L.; Blokland, J. C.; Worthy, T. H. (2024). "Skull morphology of the enigmatic Genyornis newtoni Stirling and Zeitz, 1896 (Aves, Dromornithidae), with implications for functional morphology, ecology, and evolution in the context of Galloanserae". Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology. 36 (6): 1093–1165. doi:10.1080/08912963.2024.2308212. Classification The scient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barawertornis
''Barawertornis'' is an extinct genus of cassowary-sized dromornithid known from Oligocene and Miocene deposits in Queensland and South Australia. Only a single species, ''B. tedfordi'', is placed in this genus. It shows adaptations towards a cursorial lifestyle. Like other dromornithids, ''Barawertornis'' was probably a folivorous and frugivorous browser. History and naming In 1968, the fragmentary remains of a dromornithid were reported from the Carl Creek Limestone of Riversleigh, Queensland by American palaeontologist Richard H. Tedford. Some of these remains, in addition to others, were used by Patricia Vickers-Rich in 1979 as the basis for a new genus and species, ''Barawertornis tedfordi''. The holotype (CPC 7341) is a left femur missing the trochanter and most of the shaft. Additional fossils include a partial femur, incomplete tarsometatarsus and nearly complete dorsal vertebra. Twenty-five years later, in 2004, Peter Murray and Patricia Vickers-Rich briefly described ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil Birds
Birds evolved from certain feathered dinosaurs, feathered theropod dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and non-avian dinosaurs except that some of the former survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event while the latter did not. For the purposes of this article, a 'bird' is considered to be any member of the clade Avialae.Sereno (2005) Some dinosaur groups which may or may not be true birds are listed below under Protobird, Proto-birds. This page contains a listing of prehistoric bird taxa only known from completely fossilized specimens. These extinctions took place before the Late Quaternary and thus took place in the absence of significant human interference. While the earliest hominids had been eating birds and especially their eggs, human population and technology was simply insufficient to seriously affect healthy bird populations until the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Rather, reasons for the extinctions listed here are stochastic abiotic ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genyornis
''Genyornis newtoni'' is an extinct species of large, flightless bird that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch until around 50,000 years ago. Over two metres in height, they were likely herbivorous. Many other species of Australian megafauna became extinct in Australia around that time, coinciding with the arrival of humans. It is the last known member of the extinct flightless bird family Dromornithidae which had been part of the fauna of the Australian continent for over 30 million years. They are not closely related to ratites such as emus, and their closest living relatives are thought to be fowl. Taxonomy The species was first described in 1896 by Edward Charles Stirling and A. H. C. Zeitz, the authors giving the epithet ''newtoni'' for the Cambridge professor Alfred Newton. The name of the genus is derived from the ancient Greek ''γένυς'' (''génus'') 'jaw; chin' and ''ὄρνις'' (''órnis'') 'bird', because of the relatively large size of the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anserimorphs Size Comparison
The Odontoanserae is a proposed clade that includes the family Pelagornithidae (pseudo-toothed birds) and the clade Anserimorphae (the order Anseriformes and their stem-relatives). The placement of the pseudo-toothed birds in the evolutionary tree of birds has been problematic, with some supporting the placement of them near the orders Procellariformes and Pelecaniformes based on features in the sternum. In 2005 a cladistic analysis had found support in placing pseudo-toothed birds as the sister group to waterfowl. Evidence for this comes from shared characteristics in the skull such as lack of a crest on the underside of the palatine bone and two condyles on the mandibular process of the quadrate bone, with the middle condyle beakwards of the side condyle. In addition to that, both groups have similar features in their pelvic and pectoral regions. Furthermore, a 2013 study on the growth pattern and structure of the pseudoteeth in ''Pelagornis mauretanicus'' shows more support of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anseriformes
Anseriformes is an order (biology), 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, goose, 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 Penis#Birds, penises, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves, the clade consisting of all other modern birds except the galliformes and paleognaths. 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 ecologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elephant Bird
Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the Order (biology), order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to have gone extinct around 1000 CE, likely as a result of human activity. Elephant birds comprised three species, one in the genus ''Mullerornis'', and two in ''Aepyornis.'' ''Aepyornis maximus'' is possibly the largest bird to have ever lived, with their eggs being the largest known for any amniote. Elephant birds are palaeognaths (whose flightless representatives are often known as ratites), and their closest living relatives are Kiwi (bird), kiwi (found only in New Zealand), suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead convergently evolved flightlessness from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying. Discovery Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, a French governor of Madagascar during the 1640s and 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ilbandornis
''Ilbandornis'' was a genus of ostrich-sized dromornithid, a clade known casually as "demon ducks" because they are most closely related to the water fowl clade anseriformes. It was far more lightly built than other members of the family, indicating a more cursorial lifestyle; it was a fast runner. The majority of researchers consider Dromornithids to be herbivorous; this is borne out by molecular analysis of the gastroliths and eggshells of both ''Ilbandornis'' and the related ''Genyornis''. While ''Ilbandornis'' and ''Genyornis'' have skulls of similar size to emus, other Dromornithids such as '' Dromornis'' have far more robust skulls with large beaks; these were previously considered an adaptation for carnivory, but their blunt edges and lack of hooked tip indicate that the species were herbivorous. It is therefore likely that the differences in skull shape are due to differences in diet. Ilbandornis went extinct sometime in the Miocene epoch. Taxonomy Two species named by Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
