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Masillaraptor
''Masillaraptor'' is an extinct genus of masillaraptorid, a groups basal falconiforms, from the Middle Eocene Messel Pit, Germany. It is a long-legged relative of the living falcons. Known species Only one species of ''Masillaraptor'' is known: ''M. parvunguis'' Etymology ''Masillaraptor'' comes from the Latin word ''Masilla'', which is the old name for the town of Messel, and ''raptor'' is a New Latin suffix used to indicate a predator (from ''rapere, to catch'') and in English it means ''bird of prey''. Specific epithet ''parvunguis'' is also Latin, coming from the word ''parvus'' which means small and feeble, while ''unguis'' means claw. The name refers to the fact that the specimen's claws are small in comparison to those of other raptors. Characteristics The genus ''Masillaraptor'' is different from all other known avian taxa. It possesses a combination of characters that distinguishes it from all others. 1. The beak is almost as long as the cranium itself, with eq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masillaraptor Restoration
''Masillaraptor'' is an extinct genus of masillaraptorid, a groups basal falconiforms, from the Middle Eocene Messel Pit, Germany. It is a long-legged relative of the living falcons. Known species Only one species of ''Masillaraptor'' is known: ''M. parvunguis'' Etymology ''Masillaraptor'' comes from the Latin word ''Masilla'', which is the old name for the town of Messel, and ''raptor'' is a New Latin suffix used to indicate a predator (from ''rapere, to catch'') and in English it means ''bird of prey''. Specific epithet ''parvunguis'' is also Latin, coming from the word ''parvus'' which means small and feeble, while ''unguis'' means claw. The name refers to the fact that the specimen's claws are small in comparison to those of other raptors. Characteristics The genus ''Masillaraptor'' is different from all other known avian taxa. It possesses a combination of characters that distinguishes it from all others. 1. The beak is almost as long as the cranium itself, with eq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masillaraptoridae
Masillaraptoridae is an extinct family of stem-group falconiform birds from the Eocene of Europe. They are noted for their relatively long legs. Two genera have been named: '' Danielsraptor'', from the London Clay of England, and '' Masillaraptor'', from Messel Pit in Germany. Description Masillaraptorids had long legs, which may indicate that they had a terrestrial lifestyle, foraging on the ground similar to modern caracaras. They had large pygostyles, suggesting that they would have likely had long tail feathers. This, in addition to their long ulnae, suggest that they were capable of well-developed flight. Their beaks are similar to those of extinct phorusrhacids and extant caracaras. Classification The cladogram below displays the phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masillaraptorid
Masillaraptoridae is an extinct family of stem-group falconiform birds from the Eocene of Europe. They are noted for their relatively long legs. Two genera have been named: '' Danielsraptor'', from the London Clay of England, and ''Masillaraptor'', from Messel Pit in Germany. Description Masillaraptorids had long legs, which may indicate that they had a terrestrial lifestyle, foraging on the ground similar to modern caracaras. They had large pygostyles, suggesting that they would have likely had long tail feathers. This, in addition to their long ulnae, suggest that they were capable of well-developed flight. Their beaks are similar to those of extinct phorusrhacids and extant caracaras. Classification The cladogram below displays the phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danielsraptor Phorusrhacoides
''Danielsraptor'' (meaning "Michael Daniels's thief") is an extinct genus of masillaraptorid bird from the Early Eocene (Ypresian) Walton Member of the London Clay Formation in Essex, United Kingdom. The genus contains a single species, ''D. phorusrhacoides'', known from a partial skeleton. Discovery and naming The ''Danielsraptor'' fossil material was discovered in layers of the London Clay Formation (Walton Member), dated to the early Ypresian. This formation is located near Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, England. The holotype, NMS.Z.2021.40.12, was collected in 1991 by Michael Daniels (who the taxon is named after). This specimen consists of a partial skeleton including the skull, vertebrae, fragmentary wing bones, elements of the pectoral girdle, pelvis, the majority of the legs, and various bone fragments still partially enclosed in matrix. An additional referred specimen, NMS.Z.2021.40.13, was found by Daniels in 1986. This specimen includes a partial sternum, right cor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falconiformes
The order Falconiformes () is represented by the extant family Falconidae (falcons and caracaras) and a handful of enigmatic Paleogene species. Traditionally, the other bird of prey families Cathartidae (New World vultures and condors), Sagittariidae (secretarybird), Pandionidae (ospreys), Accipitridae (hawks) were classified in Falconiformes. A variety of comparative genome analysis published since 2008, however, found that falcons are part of a clade of birds called Australaves, which also includes seriemas, parrots and passerines. Within Australaves falcons are more closely related to the parrot-passerine clade (Psittacopasserae), which together they form the clade Eufalconimorphae. The hawks and vultures occupy a basal branch in the clade Afroaves in their own clade Accipitrimorphae, closer to owls and woodpeckers. See below cladogram of Telluraves relationships based on Braun & Kimball (2021): The fossil record of Falconiformes ''sensu stricto'' is poorly documented. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle 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'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. 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 isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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-preserved fossils dating from the middle of the Eocene, it has significant geological and scientific importance. Over 1000 species of plants and animals have been found at the site. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans and the Messel Pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 9 December 1995. Significant scientific discoveries about the early evolution of mammals and birds are still being made at the Messel Pit, and the site has increasingly become a tourist site as well. History Brown coal and later oil shale was actively mined from 1859. The pit first became known for its wealth of fossils around 1900, but serious scientific excavation only started around the 1970s, when falling oil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phorusrhacidae
Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct clade of large carnivorous flightless birds that were one of the largest species of apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era; their conventionally accepted temporal range covers from 62 to 0.1 million years ( Ma) ago. They ranged in height from . Their closest modern-day relatives are believed to be the seriemas. ''Titanis walleri'', one of the larger species, is known from Texas and Florida in North America. This makes the phorusrhacids the only known large South American predator to migrate north in the Great American Interchange that followed the formation of the Isthmus of Panama land bridge (the main pulse of the interchange began about 2.6 Ma ago; ''Titanis'' at 5 Ma was an early northward migrant). It was once believed that ''T. walleri'' became extinct in North America around the time of the arrival of humans, but subsequent datings of ''Titanis'' fossils provided no evidence for their surv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cariama Cristata
The red-legged seriema (''Cariama cristata''), also known as the crested cariama and crested seriema, is a mostly predatory terrestrial bird in the seriema family ( Cariamidae), included in the Gruiformes in the old paraphyletic circumscription but recently placed in a distinct order: Cariamiformes (along with three extinct families). The red-legged seriema is widely distributed in South America, occurring in central and eastern Brazil through eastern Bolivia and Paraguay to Uruguay and central Argentina (south to La Pampa). Like the black-legged seriema, farmers often use them as guard animals to protect poultry from predators and sometimes human intruders. Taxonomy The red-legged seriema was described in 1766 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the twelfth edition of his '' Systema Naturae''. He coined the binomial name ''Palamedea cristata''. The red-legged seriema is now the only species placed in the genus ''Cariama'' that was introduced by the French zoolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamopterus
''Dynamopterus velox'' is a prehistoric bird, known from a single large right humerus recovered in France. The humerus shares anatomical features with living cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separ ...s (though it is much larger). It has also been classified in the suborder Cariamae in the Gruiformes. References Oligocene birds Cenozoic birds of Europe Paleogene France Fossils of France Quercy Phosphorites Formation {{Paleo-bird-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bathornis Grallator Restoration
''Bathornis'' ("tall bird") is an extinct lineage of birds related to modern day seriemas, that lived in North America about 37–20 million years ago. Like the closely related and also extinct phorusrhacids, it was a flightless predator, occupying predatory niches in environments classically considered to be dominated by mammals. It was a highly diverse and successful genus, spanning a large number of species that occurred from the Priabonian Eocene to the Burdigalian Miocene epochs. Description Though most material is highly incomplete, ''Bathornis'' is nonetheless known from a variety of skeletal elements: hindlimbs (most commonly tarso-metatarsals), forelimb elements (especially humeri), pelvises and skulls.Federico L. Agnolin (2009)"Sistemática y Filogenia de las Aves Fororracoideas (Gruiformes, Cariamae)"(PDF). Fundación de Historia Natural Felix de Azara: 1–79. ''Bathornis grallator'' is known from a mostly complete skeleton, including the skull, bearing a proportionall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
