''Strigogyps'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

from the Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It was probably around the size of a large

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domestication, domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey junglefowl, grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster ...

or a

guan Guan may refer to: * Guan (surname), several similar Chinese surnames ** Guān, Chinese surname * Guan (state), ancient Chinese city-state * Guan (bird), any of a number of bird species of the family Cracidae, of South and Central America * Guan ( ...

, weighing not quite . Apparently, as indicated by the ratio of lengths of wing to leg bones, ''S. sapea'' was flightless. Its legs were not adapted to running, so it seems to have had a walking lifestyle similar to

trumpeter The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

s. Unlike other

Cariamiformes Cariamiformes (or Cariamae) is an order of primarily flightless birds that has existed for over 60 million years. The group includes the family Cariamidae (seriemas) and the extinct families Phorusrhacidae, Bathornithidae, Idiornithidae and ...

, which appear to have been mostly carnivorous, ''Strigogyps'' specimens suggest a herbivorous diet. Eocathartes robustus now Strigogyps

The type species of ''Strigogyps'' is ''S. dubius'', which was described by Gaillard in 1908. It was initially placed in the owl order Strigiformes and considered to be a sophiornithid. ''S. dubius'' is based on a single

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 sm ...

from the

Late Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "d ...

to Early Oligocene

Quercy Quercy (; oc, Carcin , locally ) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue ...

phosphorite Phosphorite, phosphate rock or rock phosphate is a non-detrital sedimentary rock that contains high amounts of phosphate minerals. The phosphate content of phosphorite (or grade of phosphate rock) varies greatly, from 4% to 20% phosphorus pentoxi ...

s of France. This tibiotarsus was destroyed in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

during the bombing of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, but casts remain. In 1939, Gaillard described a second species of ''Strigogyps'', ''S. minor'', based on a

humerus The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...

, two

coracoid A coracoid (from Greek κόραξ, ''koraks'', raven) is a paired bone which is part of the shoulder assembly in all vertebrates except therian mammals (marsupials and placentals). In therian mammals (including humans), a coracoid process is pre ...

s, and two carpometacarpi, also from Quercy. In 1981, Mourer-Chauviré redescribed ''S. minor'' as ''Ameghinornis minor'', the only member of the new phorusrhacid subfamily, Ameghinornithinae. ''Ameghinornis'' was later placed in its own family, Ameghinornithidae. In 1987, Peters named another

monospecific In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

genus of ameghinornithid, ''Aenigmavis sapea'', based on a nearly complete skeleton from the Middle Eocene

Messel pit The Messel pit (german: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserve ...

. Mayr (2005) found ''Aenigmavis'' to be a species of ''Strigogyps'', ''S. sapea'', and found ''Ameghinornis'' to be synonymous with ''S. dubius'', as they both came from Quercy, and are almost identical except for coracoids and carpometacarpi of ''Ameghinornis'', which Mayr found to be unlike other ameghinornithids, and probably from an idiornithid. Strigogyps restoration

In 1935, Lambrecht described a new

New World vulture The New World vulture or condor family, Cathartidae, contains seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in warm and temperate areas of the Americas. The "New World" vultures were widesprea ...

, ''Eocathartes robustus'', and a

hornbill Hornbills (Bucerotidae) are a family of bird found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia. They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a casque on the upper mandib ...

, ''Geiseloceros robustus'', from the Middle Eocene (

Lutetian The Lutetian is, in the geologic timescale, a stage (stratigraphy), stage or age (geology), age in the Eocene. It spans the time between . The Lutetian is preceded by the Ypresian and is followed by the Bartonian. Together with the Bartonian it ...

) of the

Geisel Valley The Geisel valley (german: Geiseltal) is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel which rises in Mücheln and is a tributary of the Saale, just under long. Its mai ...

of Germany. Each was based on a single specimen, and they were found very close together. Mayr (2007) found them to be synonymous and a species of ''Strigogyps'', ''S. robustus''. Recent studies (Alvarenga and Höfling 2003, Mayr 2005) have found ''Strigogyps'' to be a more basal member of Cariamae, and not particularly close to the phorusrhachids.Mayr, Gerald (2005): "Old World phorusrhacids" (Aves, Phorusrhacidae): a new look at ''Strigogyps'' ("''Aenigmavis''") ''sapea'' (Peters 1987). ''PaleoBios (Berkeley)'' 25(1): 11-1
HTML abstract
/ref> '' Salmila robusta'', another bird from Messel was found to be more basal than ''Strigogyps'', and the clade composed of ''Salmila'' and Cariamae to be the sister taxon to

Psophiidae ''Psophia'' is a genus of birds restricted to the humid forests of the 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 trumpeting or cack ...

within a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...

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 did n ...

.Mayr, G. 2002. A new specimen of Salmila robusta (Aves: Gruiformes: Salmilidae n. fam.) from the Middle Eocene of Messel. Paleontologische Zeitschrift 76(2/2): 305-316. Fragmentary remains from the Palaeocene and/or Eocene of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and North America have also been suggested to be phorusrhachids, but, like ''Strigogyps'', they probably are not.

References

* Peters, Dieter Stefan (2007): The fossil family Ameghinornithidae (Mourer-Chauviré 1981): a short synopsis. ''Journal of Ornithology'' 148(1): 25–28. PDF fulltext

External links

Tetrapod Zoology blog post on ''Strigogyps''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1291973 Eocene birds Oligocene birds Extinct flightless birds Prehistoric birds of Europe Paleogene France Fossils of France Quercy Phosphorites Formation Fossil taxa described in 1908

See also

References

External links