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Palaeotis
''Palaeotis'' is a genus of paleognath birds from the middle Eocene epoch of central Europe. One species is known, ''Palaeotis weigelti''. The holotype specimen is a fossil tarsometatarsus and phalanx. Lambrect (1928) described it as an extinct bustard (genus ''Otis''), and gave it its consequent name (''Palaeotis'' means ''ancient bustard'').Lambrecht, K. (1928) ''Palaeotis weigelti n. g. sp., eine fossil trappe aus der mitteleozanen Braunkohle des Geiseltales. Jahrbuch hallesch. Verband., Halle, n.s., 7:11. After a suggestion by Storrs L. Olson, a review of the type specimen and the referral of several other fossils by Houde and Haubold (1987) concluded that ''Palaeotis'' is a palaeognath and assigned it to the same order as ostriches; the Struthioniformes.Houde, Peter. Haubold, Hartmut. (1987) Palaeovertebrata, 17 (2): 27 - 46, 6 figures. 20 June 1987. In 2021, it was considered a member of the family Paleotididae alongside '' Galligeranoides'' from the Early Eocene of France ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeotis Weigelti 2
''Palaeotis'' is a genus of paleognath birds from the middle Eocene epoch of central Europe. One species is known, ''Palaeotis weigelti''. The holotype specimen is a fossil tarsometatarsus and Phalanx bones, phalanx. Lambrect (1928) described it as an extinct bustard (genus ''Otis''), and gave it its consequent name (''Palaeotis'' means ''ancient bustard'').Lambrecht, K. (1928) ''Palaeotis weigelti n. g. sp., eine fossil trappe aus der mitteleozanen Braunkohle des Geiseltales. Jahrbuch hallesch. Verband., Halle, n.s., 7:11. After a suggestion by Storrs L. Olson, a review of the type specimen and the referral of several other fossils by Houde and Haubold (1987) concluded that ''Palaeotis'' is a palaeognath and assigned it to the same Order (biology), order as ostriches; the Struthioniformes.Houde, Peter. Haubold, Hartmut. (1987) Palaeovertebrata, 17 (2): 27 - 46, 6 figures. 20 June 1987. In 2021, it was considered a member of the family Paleotididae alongside ''Galligeranoides'' fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ratite
A ratite () is any of a diverse group of flightless, large, long-necked, and long-legged birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae. Kiwi, the exception, are much smaller and shorter-legged and are the only nocturnal extant ratites. The systematics of and relationships within the paleognath clade have been in flux. Previously, all the flightless members had been assigned to the order Struthioniformes, which is more recently regarded as containing only the ostrich. The modern bird superorder Palaeognathae consists of ratites and the flighted Neotropic tinamous (compare to Neognathae). Unlike other flightless birds, the ratites have no keel on their sternum — hence the name, from the Latin ''ratis'' (raft, a vessel which has no keel - in contradistinction to extant flighted birds with a keel). Without this to anchor their wing muscles, they could not have flown even if they developed suitable wings. Ratites are a paraphyletic group; tinamous fall within them, and are the sister gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Struthioniformes
Struthioniformes is an order of birds with only a single extant family, Struthionidae, containing the ostriches. Several other extinct families are known, spanning across the Northern Hemisphere, from the Early Eocene to the early Pliocene, including a variety of flightless forms like the Paleotididae, Geranoididae, Eogruidae and Ergilornithidae, the latter two thought to be closely related to Struthionidae. Evolutionary history According to Mayr and Zelenkov (2021), all Struthioniformes are united by the following characters: "a very long and narrow tarsometatarsus with short trochleae for the second and fourth toes, a tubercle next to the pons supratendineus on the distal end of the tibiotarsus, as well as a shortening of all non-ungual phalanges of the fourth toe except for the proximal one" All known members of the group are thought to have been flightless. Struthioniformes were widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere during the Eocene, including Paleotididae from Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleognath
Palaeognathae (; ) is a infraclass of birds, called paleognaths, within the class Aves of the clade Archosauria. It is one of the two extant infraclasses of birds, the other being Neognathae, both of which form Neornithes. Palaeognathae contains five extant branches of flightless lineages (plus two extinct clades), termed ratites, and one flying lineage, the Neotropic tinamous.Wetmore, A. (1960) A Classification for Birds of the World. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution) 139: 1–37. There are 47 species of tinamous, five of kiwis (''Apteryx''), three of cassowaries (''Casuarius''), one of emus (''Dromaius'') (another became extinct in historic times), two of rheas (''Rhea'') and two of ostrich (''Struthio'').Clements, J. C. ''et al''. (2010) Recent research has indicated that paleognaths are monophyletic but the traditional taxonomic split between flightless and flighted forms is incorrect; tinamous are within the ratite radiation, me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remiornis
''Remiornis heberti'' is an extinct species of paleognath bird from the Paleocene of France. It is a species comparable in size to modern rheas, and possibly related to another European Paleogene ratite, ''Palaeotis ''Palaeotis'' is a genus of paleognath birds from the middle Eocene epoch of central Europe. One species is known, ''Palaeotis weigelti''. The holotype specimen is a fossil tarsometatarsus and phalanx. Lambrect (1928) described it as an extinct ...''. In spite of being one of the oldest ratites in the world, it is often ignored for Gondwana vicariance narratives.Buffetaut, E.; Angst, D. (November 2014). "Stratigraphic distribution of large flightless birds in the Palaeogene of Europe and its palaeobiological and palaeogeographical implications". Earth-Science Reviews. 138: 394–408. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.07.001. References Paleocene birds Paleognathae Prehistoric birds of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1881 Prehistoric bird genera {{paleo- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messel Shales
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] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). 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'', "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 Carbon-13, 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope Carbon-12, 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 Popigai impact structure, Siberia and in what is now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flightless
Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including the well known ratites (ostriches, emu, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwi) and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail (length 12.5 cm, weight 34.7 g). The largest (both heaviest and tallest) flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird, is the ostrich (2.7 m, 156 kg). Many domesticated birds, such as the domestic chicken and domestic duck, have lost the ability to fly for extended periods, although their ancestral species, the red junglefowl and mallard, respectively, are capable of extended flight. A few particularly bred birds, such as the Broad Breasted White turkey, have become totally flightless as a result of selective breeding; the birds were bred to grow massive breast meat that weighs too much for the bird's wings to support in flight. Flightlessness has evolved in many different birds independently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithornithids
Lithornithidae is an extinct, possibly paraphyletic (but see below) group of early paleognath birds. They are known from fossils dating to the Upper Paleocene through the Middle Eocene of North America and Europe, with possible Late Cretaceous representatives. All are extinct today; the youngest specimen is the currently unnamed SGPIMH MEV1 specimen from the mid-Eocene Messel Pit site. Lithornithids had long, slender, bills for probing. They closely resembled modern tinamous. They possessed a rhynchokinetic skull with relatively unfused cranial bones, a weakly fused pygostyle and a splenial. The unguals were more curved than in tinamous and probably allowed better perching in trees. The order Lithornithiformes was erected by Dr. Peter Houde in 1988. Initially, only three genera (''Lithornis'', ''Paracathartes'', and ''Pseudocrypturus'') and eight named species were included. ''Promusophaga'' (Harrison & Walker, 1977) originally considered a stem-turaco, is considered synonymou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rheas
The rheas ( ), also known as ñandus ( ) or South American ostriches, are large ratites (flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bone) in the order Rheiformes, native to South America, distantly related to the ostrich and emu. Most taxonomic authorities recognize two extant species: the greater or American rhea (''Rhea americana''), and the lesser or Darwin's rhea (''Rhea pennata''). The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the puna rhea as another species instead of a subspecies of the lesser rhea. The IUCN currently rates the greater and puna rheas as near-threatened in their native ranges, while Darwin's rhea is of least concern. In addition, a feral population of the greater rhea in Germany appears to be growing, though control efforts are underway, and seem to be succeeding in controlling the birds' population growth. Etymology The name "rhea" was used in 1752 by Paul Möhring and adopted as the English common name. Möhring named the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostriches
Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There are two living species of ostrich: the common ostrich, native to large areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Somali ostrich, native to the Horn of Africa. The common ostrich was also historically native to the Arabian Peninsula, and ostriches were present across Asia as far east as Mongolia during the Late Pleistocene and possibly into the Holocene. They lay the largest eggs of any living land animal. With the ability to run at 70 km/h (43.5 mph), they are the fastest birds on land. They are farmed worldwide, particularly for their feathers as they are used as decoration and feather dusters. Their skin is also used for leather products. They are the heaviest living birds. Taxonomic history The genus ''Struthio'' was first described by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
