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Presbyornithids
Presbyornithidae is an extinct group of birds found in North America, South America, East Asia, Australia and possibly North Africa. They had evolved by the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous and became extinct during the Aquitanian age of the Early Miocene. The family contains the oldest known neognath, ''Teviornis'' from the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. Initially, presbyornithids were believed to present a mix of characters shown by waterbirds, shorebirds and flamingos and were used to argue for an evolutionary relationship between these groups, but they are now generally accepted to be waterfowl closely related to modern ducks, geese, and screamers. They were generally long-legged, long-necked birds, standing around one meter high, with the body of a duck, feet similar to a wader but webbed, and a flat duck-like bill adapted for filter feeding. At least some species were social birds that lived in large flocks and nested in colonies, while others like ''Wilaru'' were t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilaru
''Wilaru'' is an extinct genus of presbyornithid bird from Australia during the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, around 26-22 million years ago. The type species is ''Wilaru tedfordi'', and the second species is ''Wilaru prideauxi''. Discovery and naming The type species, ''Wilaru tedfordi'', was described from fossil material collected from Lake Pinpa, Lake Palankarinna and Billeroo Creek, specifically in the Namba Formation of Lake Eyre Basin, north-eastern South Australia. The genus name ''Wilaru'' is the term for “stone curlew” in the Diyari language of the Lake Eyre region. The specific epithet of the type species ''W. tedfordi'' honours American palaeontologist Richard H. Tedford (1929–2011) of the American Museum of Natural History, who led the 1971 expedition to Lake Pinpa during which much of the descriptive material was collected. The second species, ''Wilaru prideauxi'', was first named in 2016 after the Australian vertebrate paleontologist Gavin Prideaux, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teviornis
''Teviornis'' is an extinct genus of presbyornithid which lived during the Maastrichtian stage, around 70 million years ago. One species has been described, ''T. gobiensis''. It is the oldest known neognath along with '' Vegavis'', and its fossils are collected from the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. Discovery and naming The fossils were collected at the Guriliin Tsav locality, northwest corner of Umnogobi Aimak, Mongolia. The holotype consists of a crushed partial right forelimb. These pieces include a nearly complete right carpometacarpus, two phalanges, the radiale and ulnare of the wrist, and a fragment of the distal right humerus. The catalog number of these fossils are given multiple times as PIN 4499–1, but they are listed as PIN 44991–1 on page 3, where the holotype is formally listed. This is probably a misprint. The genus name ''Teviornis'' is the Greek masculine word for bird combined with the name of Victor Tereschenko, the Paleontologist at the PIN who disco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flamingo
Flamingos or flamingoes () are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbean), and two species native to Afro-Eurasia. A group of flamingoes is called a "flamboyance", or a "stand". Etymology The name ''flamingo'' comes from Portuguese or Spanish ; in turn, the word comes from Provençal – a combination of and a Germanic-like suffix ''-ing''. The word may also have been influenced by the Spanish ethnonym or . The name of the genus, ''Phoenicopterus'', is ; other genera names include '' Phoeniconaias,'' which means , and '' Phoenicoparrus,'' which means . Taxonomy and systematics The family Phoenicopteridae was introduced by the French zoologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1831, with '' Phoenicopterus'' as the type genus. Traditionally, the long-legged Ciconiiformes, probably a paraphyletic asse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presbyornis
''Presbyornis'' is an extinct genus of presbyornithid bird from North America during the Paleogene period, between the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene. History of discovery The fossil record of ''P. pervetus'' includes many complete skeletons from Green River Formation sites (Early Eocene), suggesting that the birds nested in colonies and that they possibly died due to volcanism or botulism, the latter of which is similar to many colony-nesting waterfowl or shorebirds today. Fossils identified as ''P.'' cf. ''pervetus'' have been discovered from the Margaret Formation of Ellesmere Island, where the remains of '' Gastornis'' sp. have also been found. ''P. recurvirostra'' is known from a partial wing ( KUVP 10105) found in the Colton Formation, from the Late Paleocene to Early Eocene sediments of the Wasatch Plateau near Ephraim, Utah. ''P. isoni'', much larger than ''P. pervetus'', is known from the Late Paleocene Aquia Formation in Maryland, based on the partial humerus ( U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neognath
Neognathae (; ) is an infraclass of birds, called neognaths, within the class Aves of the clade Archosauria. Neognathae includes the majority of living birds; the exceptions being the tinamous and the flightless ratites, which belong instead to the sister taxon Palaeognathae. There are nearly 10,000 living species of neognaths. The earliest fossils are known from the very end of the Cretaceous with the oldest known members being ''Teviornis'' and ''Vegavis'', but molecular clocks suggest that neognaths originated sometime in the first half of the Late Cretaceous, about 90 million years ago. Since then, they have undergone adaptive radiation, producing the diversity of form, function, and behavior that exists today. Neognathae includes the order Passeriformes (perching birds), one of the largest orders of land vertebrates, containing some 60% of living birds. Passeriformes is twice as species-rich as Rodentia and about five times as species-rich as Chiroptera (bats), which are the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Eos, Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isoto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wyoming
Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With an estimated population of 587,618 as of 2024, Wyoming is the List of U.S. states and territories by population, least populous state despite being the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 10th largest by area, and it has the List of U.S. states by population density, second-lowest population density after Alaska. The List of capitals in the United States, state capital and List of municipalities in Wyoming, most populous city is Cheyenne, Wyoming, Cheyenne, which had a population of 65,132 in 2020. Wyoming's western half consists mostly of the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains; its eastern half consists of high-elevation prairie, and is referred to as th ... [...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] |
Filter Feeding
Filter feeders are aquatic animals that acquire nutrients by feeding on organic matters, food particles or smaller organisms (bacteria, microalgae and zooplanktons) suspended in water, typically by having the water pass over or through a specialized filtering organ that sieves out and/or traps solids. Filter feeders can play an important role in condensing biomass and removing excess nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphate) from the local waterbody, and are therefore considered water-cleaning ecosystem engineers. They are also important in bioaccumulation and, as a result, as indicator organisms. Filter feeders can be sessile, planktonic, nektonic or even neustonic (in the case of the buoy barnacle) depending on the species and the niches they have evolved to occupy. Extant species that rely on such method of feeding encompass numerous phyla, including poriferans (sponges), cnidarians (jellyfish, sea pens and corals), arthropods ( krill, mysids and barnacles), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Feet And Legs
The anatomy of bird legs and feet is diverse, encompassing many accommodations to perform a wide variety of functions. Most birds are classified as digitigrade animals, meaning they walk on their toes rather than the entire foot. Some of the lower bones of the foot (the distals and most of the metatarsal) are fused to form the tarsometatarsus – a third segment of the leg, specific to birds. The upper bones of the foot ( proximals), in turn, are fused with the tibia to form the tibiotarsus, as over time the centralia disappeared. The fibula also reduced.; ; The legs are attached to a strong assembly consisting of the pelvic girdle extensively fused with the uniform spinal bone (also specific to birds) called the '' synsacrum'', built from some of the fused bones. Hindlimbs Birds are generally digitigrade animals ( toe-walkers), which affects the structure of their leg skeleton. They use only their hindlimbs to walk (bipedalism). Their forelimbs evolved to become ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wader
245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, forage for food crawling or burrowing in the mud and sand, usually small arthropods such as aquatic insects or crustaceans. The term "wader" is used in Europe, while "shorebird" is used in North America, where "wader" may be used instead to refer to long-legged wading birds such as storks and herons. There are about 210 species of wader, most of which live in wetland or coastal environments. Many species of Arctic and temperate regions are strongly migratory, but tropical birds are often resident, or move only in response to rainfall patterns. Some of the Arctic species, such as the little stint, are amongst the longest distance migrants, spending the non- breeding season in the southern hemisphere. Many of the smaller species found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
