''Eopelecanus'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before ...

from the

Birket Qarun Formation The Birket Qarun Formation is an Eocene aged formation in Egypt. It is part of the famous Wadi al Hitan. Notable fossils include the ancient whales ''Basilosaurus'' and ''Dorudon'' as well as sirenians ''Eotheroides'' and ''Eosiren''. It also con ...

in the Wadi El Hitan in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, dating to the late

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 ...

(

Priabonian The Priabonian is, in the ICS's geologic timescale, the latest age or the upper stage of the Eocene Epoch or Series. It spans the time between . The Priabonian is preceded by the Bartonian and is followed by the Rupelian, the lowest stage ...

). The holotype, a right

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 ...

discovered in 2008, represents the oldest record of pelicans to date, the only named fossil pelican to date and only one species is known, ''E. aegyptiacus''.

History and naming

The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

specimen of ''Eopelecanus'', a nearly complete

designated MUVP 505, was discovered in 2008 in the sandstone strata of the upper

within the Egyptian "Valley of Whales". A cast of the fossil was created shortly afterwards and was permanently stored at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. The fossil was eventually described and found to represent a distinct genus in 2021 by El Adli and colleagues. The name ''Eopelecanus'' means "dawn pelecan", formed by the combination of the Ancient Greek "eos" (dawn) and "''Pelecanus''", the genus name of all extant pelicans. "Pelecanus" itself derives from the Ancient Greek "pelekys" for axe and the masculine

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

"-anus". The species name simply refers to the taxon's presence in Egypt.

Description

Unlike in any modern pelican, the proximal portion of ''Eopelecanus tibiotarsus shows no sinistral twisting of its body, which in extant species reveals the attachment site of the calf musculature when viewed from the front. The attachment site for the medial calf muscle is only weakly developed. The medial edge of the extensor groove, which houses the extensor muscle, and the medial

condyle A condyle (;Entry "condyle"
in

are roughly in line with one-another. The flexor fossa preserves a deep and expanded pneumatic opening. The dorsal end of the lateral

cnemial crest The cnemial crest is a crestlike prominence located at the front side of the head of the tibiotarsus or tibia in the legs of many mammals and reptiles (including birds and other dinosaurs). The main extensor muscle of the thigh In anatomy, the ...

is sinuous, which is not unique amongst pelicans but still sets ''Eopelecanus'' apart from the

great white pelican The great white pelican (''Pelecanus onocrotalus'') also known as the eastern white pelican, rosy pelican or simply white pelican is a bird in the pelican family. It breeds from southeastern Europe through Asia and Africa, in swamps and shallow ...

, the

brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth ...

and most specimens of the

American white pelican The American white pelican (''Pelecanus erythrorhynchos'') is a large aquatic soaring bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Costa Rica, in winter. Taxonomy The Americ ...

. The degree to which the bone is ossified, coupled with its surface texture, suggests that the individual the holotype belonged to was an adult. The holotype bone measures long. Assuming that ''Eopelecanus'' shares similar proportions to its modern relatives, it was approximately the size of the brown pelican and slightly smaller than the

pink-backed pelican The pink-backed pelican (''Pelecanus rufescens'') is a bird of the pelican family. It is a resident breeder in the swamps and shallow lakes of Africa and southern Arabian Peninsula, Arabia; it has also been Local extinction, extirpated from Mad ...

and the

spot-billed pelican The spot-billed pelican (''Pelecanus philippensis'') or gray pelican is a member of the pelican family. It breeds in southern Asia from southern Iran across India east to Indonesia. It is a bird of large inland and coastal waters, especially larg ...

, making it one of the smallest pelicans.

Paleobiology

Although ''Eopelecanus'' can be clearly set apart from the modern pelican genus, its anatomy is still broadly similar to that of its modern relatives. This, along with pelican remains from the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

, shows that this group is generally conservative with its morphology and has retained its bodyplan for a majority of the Cenozoic, changing only very little over the course of their evolution. During the

, when ''Eopelecanus'' lived, northern Egypt was situated at the southern edge of the

Tethys sea The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasia ...

with large parts of its current landmass flooded. Wadi El Hitan, the Valley of Whales, was located just north-west of exposed land and preserves not just the remains of marine animals such as early whales and sirenians but also terrestrial mammals like the stem-elephants ''

Moeritherium ''Moeritherium'' ("the beast from Lake Moeris") is an extinct genus of basal proboscideans from the Eocene of North and West Africa. The first specimen was discovered in strata from the Fayum fossil deposits of Egypt. It was named in 1901 by C ...

'' and ''

Barytherium ''Barytherium'' (meaning "heavy beast") is a genus of an extinct genus of large primitive proboscideans that lived during the late Eocene and early Oligocene in North Africa. The type species is ''Barytherium grave'', found at the beginning of th ...

''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q110442775 Pelicans Fossil taxa described in 2021 Pelecaniformes Prehistoric bird genera