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Torotix
''Torotix'' is a Late Cretaceous genus of aquatic birds. They lived along the shores of the Western Interior Seaway, but it is not clear whether they were seabirds or freshwater birds, as the genus is only known from a humerus. Consequently, the genus contains only one known species, ''Torotix clemensi''. ''T. clemensi'' is represented by a single fossil specimen, a partial humerus (upper arm bone) recovered from the Lance formation of Wyoming. Its deposits are dated to the very end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago. Classification ''Torotix'' was first described by Brodkorb in 1963, who initially suggested that it was related to modern flamingos, in the order Phoenicopteriformes.Brodkorb (1963). "Birds from the Upper Cretaceous of Wyoming." pp. 50–70 in Sibley (ed.), ''Proceedings of the XIII International Ornithological Congress''. Later researchers thought it was more likely to have been related to the Charadriiformes (waders/shorebirds).Olson, S. (1985). "The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lance Formation
The Lance (Creek) Formation is a division of Late Cretaceous (dating to about 69–66 Ma) rocks in the western United States. Named after Lance Creek, Wyoming, the microvertebrate fossils and dinosaurs represent important components of the latest Mesozoic vertebrate faunas. The Lance Formation is Late Maastrichtian in age (Lancian NALMA, land mammal age), and shares much fauna with the Hell Creek Formation of Montana and North Dakota, the Frenchman Formation of southwest Saskatchewan, and the lower part of the Scollard Formation of Alberta. The Lance Formation occurs above the ''Baculites clinolobatus'' ammonite marine zone in Wyoming, the top of which has been dated to about 69 million years ago, and extends to the K-Pg boundary, 66 million years ago. However, the characteristic land vertebrate fauna of the Lancian age (which take its name from this formation) is only found in the upper strata of the Lance, roughly corresponding to the thinner equivalent formations such as the H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelecaniformes
The Pelecaniformes are an order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide. As traditionally (but erroneously) defined, they encompass all birds that have feet with all four toes webbed. Hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. Under this obsolete definition, the Fregatidae (frigatebirds), Sulidae (gannets and boobies), Phalacrocoracidae (cormorants and shags), Anhingidae (darters), and Phaethontidae (tropicbirds) were included in the Pelecaniformes. Subsequent molecular and morphological studies indicate they are in fact not close relatives to "true" Pelecaniformes, and they are now placed in their own orders, Suliformes and Phaethontiformes, respectively. Pelecaniformes as currently defined comprise the pelicans, shoebill and hamerkop, which form a clade within the order (suborder Pelecani), along with herons ( Ardeidae) and ibises and spoonbills ( Threskiornithidae); the relationships between Pelecani and the othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charadriiformes
Charadriiformes (, from '' Charadrius'', the type genus of family Charadriidae) is a diverse order of small to medium-large birds. It includes about 390 species and has members in all parts of the world. Most charadriiform birds live near water and eat invertebrates or other small animals; however, some are pelagic (seabirds), others frequent deserts, and a few are found in dense forest. Members of this group can also collectively be referred to as shorebirds. Taxonomy, systematics and evolution The order was formerly divided into three suborders: * The waders (or "Charadrii"): typical shorebirds, most of which feed by probing in the mud or picking items off the surface in both coastal and freshwater environments. * The gulls and their allies (or " Lari"): these are generally larger species which take fish from the sea. Several gulls and skuas will also take food items from beaches, or rob smaller species, and some have become adapted to inland environments. * The auks (or "Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the Latin word for the white limestone known as chalk. The chalk of northern France and the white cliffs of south-eastern England date from the Cretaceous Period. Climate During the Late Cretaceous, the climate was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Geography Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Aus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gallornis
''Gallornis'' is a genus of prehistoric avialan from the Cretaceous. The single known species ''Gallornis straeleni'' lived near today's Auxerre in Yonne ''département'' (France); it has been dated very tentatively to the Berriasian-Hauterivian stages, that is about 140–130 million years ago. The known fossil material consists of a worn partial femur and a fragment of the humerus.Hope, Sylvia (2002): The Mesozoic radiation of Neornithes. ''In:'' Chiappe, Luis M. & Witmer, Lawrence M. (eds.): Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs: 339-388. This is a highly significant taxon for theories about the evolution of birds. It is not known from much or well-preserved material. It has been proposed that the remains show features only known from the Neornithes – the group of birds that exists today. Thus, the ''Gallornis'' fossils suggest that as early as about 130 million years ago or more the ancestors of all living birds might already have been an evolutionary lineage distinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data and observed heritable traits of DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, and morphology. The results are a phylogenetic tree—a diagram depicting the hypothetical relationships among the organisms, reflecting their inferred evolutionary history. The tips of a phylogenetic tree represent the observed entities, which can be living taxa or fossils. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the taxa represented on the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about directionality of character state transformation, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in question. In addition to their use for inferring phylogenetic pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family (, : ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family—or whether a described family should be acknowledged—is established and decided upon by active taxonomists. There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to a lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parascaniornis
''Baptornis'' ("diving bird") is a genus of flightless, aquatic birds from the Late Cretaceous, some 87-80 million years ago (roughly mid-Coniacian to mid-Campanian faunal stages). The fossils of ''Baptornis advenus'', the type species, were discovered in Kansas, which at its time was mostly covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow shelf sea. It is now known to have also occurred in today's Sweden, where the Turgai Strait joined the ancient North Sea; possibly, it occurred in the entire Holarctic. Othniel Charles Marsh discovered the first fossils of this bird in the 1870s. This was, alongside the ''Archaeopteryx'', one of the first Mesozoic birds to become known to science. Ecology More material evidence exists for the ecology of ''B. advenus'' than for any other member of the Hesperornithes, with the possible exception of ''Hesperornis regalis'', but still much is left to conjecture. The loon-sized bird was of middle size among its relatives and had a markedly elongat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Junior Synonym
In taxonomy, the scientific classification of living organisms, a synonym is an alternative scientific name for the accepted scientific name of a taxon. The botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that now goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name (under the currently used system of scientific nomenclature) to the Norway spruce, which he called '' Pinus abies''. This name is no longer in use, so it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, '' Picea abies''. * In zoology, moving a species from one genus to another results in a different binomen, but the name is considered an alternative combination rather than a synonym. The concept of synonymy in zoology is reserved for two names at the same rank that refers to a taxon at that rank – for example, the name ''Papilio prorsa'' Linnaeus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black-necked Stilt
The black-necked stilt (''Himantopus mexicanus'') is a locally abundant shorebird of North and South American wetlands and coastlines. It is found from the coastal areas of California through much of the interior western United States and along the Gulf of Mexico as far east as Florida, then south through Central America and the Caribbean to Brazil, Peru and the Galápagos Islands, with an isolated population, the Hawaiian stilt, in Hawaii. The northernmost populations, particularly those from inland, are migratory, wintering from the extreme south of the United States to southern Mexico, rarely as far south as Costa Rica; on the Baja California peninsula it is only found regularly in winter. Some authorities, including the IUCN, treat it as a synonym of ''Himantopus himantopus''. Taxonomy It is often treated as a subspecies of the common or black-winged stilt, using the trinomial name ''Himantopus himantopus mexicanus''. However, the American Ornithological Society, AOS has al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hesperornithes
Hesperornithes is an extinct and highly specialized group of aquatic Avialae, avialans closely related to the ancestors of modern birds. They inhabited both marine and freshwater habitats in the Northern Hemisphere, and include genus, genera such as ''Hesperornis'', ''Parahesperornis'', ''Baptornis'', ''Enaliornis'', and ''Potamornis'', all strong-swimming, predatory divers. Many of the species most specialized for swimming were completely flightless. The largest known hesperornithean, ''Canadaga arctica'', may have reached a maximum adult length of . Hesperornitheans were the only Mesozoic avialans known to colonize the oceans. They were wiped out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, along with Enantiornithes, enantiornitheans and all other non-avian dinosaurs. Anatomy and ecology Most of what is known about this group rests on analyses of single species, as few provide sufficiently complete fossils for analysis. Although some of the smaller and more basal species, l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
