''Aramus paludigrus'' is an extinct
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of
limpkin
The limpkin (''Aramus guarauna''), also called carrao, courlan, and crying bird, is a large wading bird related to rails and cranes, and the only extant species in the family Aramidae. It is found mostly in wetlands in warm parts of the America ...
, semi-
aquatic bird
A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seab ...
s related to
cranes (order
Gruiformes
The Gruiformes ( ) are an order containing a considerable number of living and extinct bird families, with a widespread geographical diversity. Gruiform means "crane-like".
Traditionally, a number of wading and terrestrial bird families that ...
), which are similar. ''Aramus paludigrus'' was found in the famous
Konzentrat-Lagerstätte of the
Honda Group at
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villaherm ...
, dating from the mid-
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
period, in central
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
.
[Rasmussen, Tab, 1997. Birds. In: R. F. Kay; R. H. Madden; R. L. Cifelli & J. J. Flynn (eds.) ''Vertebrate paleontology in the neotropics - the Miocene fauna of La Venta, Colombia. Smithsonian Institution Press''.]
Description
This bird was described in 1997 based on a nearly complete
tibiotarsus
The tibiotarsus is the large bone between the femur and the tarsometatarsus in the leg of a bird. It is the fusion of the proximal part of the tarsus with the tibia.
A similar structure also occurred in the Mesozoic Heterodontosauridae. These ...
bone, very similar to its modern relative, the limpkin ''Aramus garaudana'', although this element measured about long, which implies a 20% larger size. It also differs from the modern species in which this bone has larger lateral
, the axis of the bone is longer and narrower, very similar to that found in modern trumpeters (''
Psophia
''Psophia'' is a genus of birds restricted to the humid forests of the Amazon rainforest, Amazon and Guiana Shield in South America. It is the only genus in the family Psophiidae. Birds in the genus are commonly known as trumpeters, due to the t ...
'').
The general structure of this animal should not very different from the modern limpkins, being a rather sedentary bird (no remains are known from other parts of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
), and what is known of the strata in which he found, had to wade through swamps in search of
snail
A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...
s,
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s and
bivalves
Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed by a calcified exoskeleton consis ...
to feed on them, that led to their scientific name, as in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
''paludigrus'' can be translated as "marsh crane."
See also
*
Honda Group
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q4784037
Gruiformes
Miocene birds of South America
Laventan
Neogene Colombia
Fossils of Colombia
Honda Group, Colombia
Fossil taxa described in 1997