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Torotix
''Torotix'' is a Late Cretaceous genus of aquatic birds. They lived along the shores of the Western Interior Seaway, but it is not clear whether they were seabirds or freshwater birds, as the genus is only known from a humerus. Consequently, the genus contains only one known species, ''Torotix clemensi''. ''T. clemensi'' is represented by a single fossil specimen, a partial humerus (upper arm bone) recovered from the Lance formation of Wyoming. Its deposits are dated to the very end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago. Classification ''Torotix'' was first described by Brodkorb in 1963, who initially suggested that it was related to modern flamingos, in the order Phoenicopteriformes.Brodkorb (1963). "Birds from the Upper Cretaceous of Wyoming." pp. 50–70 in Sibley (ed.), ''Proceedings of the XIII International Ornithological Congress''. Later researchers thought it was more likely to have been related to the Charadriiformes (waders/shorebirds).Olson, S. (1985). "The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lance Formation
The Lance (Creek) Formation is a division of Late Cretaceous (dating to about 69 - 66 Ma) rocks in the western United States. Named after Lance Creek, Wyoming, the microvertebrate fossils and dinosaurs represent important components of the latest Mesozoic vertebrate faunas. The Lance Formation is Late Maastrichtian in age (Lancian land mammal age), and shares much fauna with the Hell Creek Formation of Montana and North Dakota, the Frenchman Formation of southwest Saskatchewan, and the lower part of the Scollard Formation of Alberta. The Lance Formation occurs above the ''Baculites clinolobatus'' ammonite marine zone in Wyoming, the top of which has been dated to about 69 million years ago, and extends to the K-Pg boundary, 66 million years ago. However, the characteristic land vertebrate fauna of the Lancian age (which take its name from this formation) is only found in the upper strata of the Lance, roughly corresponding to the thinner equivalent formations such as the Hell C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelecaniformes
The Pelecaniformes are an order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide. As traditionally—but erroneously—defined, they encompass all birds that have feet with all four toes webbed. Hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes. Most have a bare throat patch (gular patch), and the nostrils have evolved into dysfunctional slits, forcing them to breathe through their mouths. They also have a pectinate nail on their longest toe. This is shaped like a comb and is used to brush out and separate their feathers. They feed on fish, squid, or similar marine life. Nesting is colonial, but individual birds are monogamous. The young are altricial, hatching from the egg helpless and naked in most. They lack a brood patch. The pelicans, shoebill and hamerkop form a clade within the order, with their next closest relatives being a clade containing the herons, ibises and spoonbills. The Fregatidae (frigatebirds), Sulidae (gannets and boobie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charadriiformes
Charadriiformes (, from ''Charadrius'', the type genus of family Charadriidae) is a diverse order of small to medium-large birds. It includes about 390 species and has members in all parts of the world. Most charadriiform birds live near water and eat invertebrates or other small animals; however, some are pelagic (seabirds), others frequent deserts, and a few are found in dense forest. Members of this group can also collectively be referred to as shorebirds. Taxonomy, systematics and evolution The order was formerly divided into three suborders: * The waders (or "Charadrii"): typical shorebirds, most of which feed by probing in the mud or picking items off the surface in both coastal and freshwater environments. * The gulls and their allies (or " Lari"): these are generally larger species which take fish from the sea. Several gulls and skuas will also take food items from beaches, or rob smaller species, and some have become adapted to inland environments. * The auks (or "Alcae" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the Latin word for the white limestone known as chalk. The chalk of northern France and the white cliffs of south-eastern England date from the Cretaceous Period. Climate During the Late Cretaceous, the climate was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Geography Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and Ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gallornis
''Gallornis'' is a genus of prehistoric birds from the Cretaceous. The single known species ''Gallornis straeleni'' lived near today's Auxerre in Yonne ''département'' (France); it has been dated very tentatively to the Berriasian-Hauterivian stages, that is about 140–130 million years ago. The known fossil material consists of a worn partial femur and a fragment of the humerus.Hope, Sylvia (2002): The Mesozoic radiation of Neornithes. ''In:'' Chiappe, Luis M. & Witmer, Lawrence M. (eds.): Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs: 339-388. This is a highly significant taxon for theories about the evolution of birds. It is not known from much or well-preserved material. It has been proposed that the remains show features only known from the Neornithes – the group of birds that exists today. Thus, the ''Gallornis'' fossils suggest that as early as about 130 million years ago or more the ancestors of all living birds might already have been an evolutionary lineage distinct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 within groups of organisms. These relationships are determined by Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference methods that focus on observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, or morphology. The result of such an analysis is a phylogenetic tree—a diagram containing a hypothesis of relationships that reflects the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, and represent the "end" or the present time in an evolutionary lineage. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parascaniornis
''Baptornis'' ("diving bird") is a genus of flightless, aquatic birds from the Late Cretaceous, some 87-80 million years ago (roughly mid-Coniacian to mid- Campanian faunal stages). The fossils of ''Baptornis advenus'', the type species, were discovered in Kansas, which at its time was mostly covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow shelf sea. It is now known to have also occurred in today's Sweden, where the Turgai Strait joined the ancient North Sea; possibly, it occurred in the entire Holarctic. Othniel Charles Marsh discovered the first fossils of this bird in the 1870s. This was, alongside the ''Archaeopteryx'', one of the first Mesozoic birds to become known to science. Ecology More material evidence exists for the ecology of ''B. advenus'' than for any other member of the Hesperornithes, with the possible exception of ''Hesperornis regalis'', but still much is left to conjecture. The loon-sized bird was of middle size among its relatives and had a markedly elon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baptornis
''Baptornis'' ("diving bird") is a genus of flightless, aquatic birds from the Late Cretaceous, some 87-80 million years ago (roughly mid-Coniacian to mid-Campanian faunal stages). The fossils of ''Baptornis advenus'', the type species, were discovered in Kansas, which at its time was mostly covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow shelf sea. It is now known to have also occurred in today's Sweden, where the Turgai Strait joined the ancient North Sea; possibly, it occurred in the entire Holarctic. Othniel Charles Marsh discovered the first fossils of this bird in the 1870s. This was, alongside the ''Archaeopteryx'', one of the first Mesozoic birds to become known to science. Ecology More material evidence exists for the ecology of ''B. advenus'' than for any other member of the Hesperornithes, with the possible exception of ''Hesperornis regalis'', but still much is left to conjecture. The loon-sized bird was of middle size among its relatives and had a markedly elonga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Junior Synonym
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name (under the currently used system of scientific nomenclature) to the Norway spruce, which he called ''Pinus abies''. This name is no longer in use, so it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, ''Picea abies''. * In zoology, moving a species from one genus to another results in a different binomen, but the name is considered an alternative combination rather than a synonym. The concept of synonymy in zoology is reserved for two names at the same rank that refers to a taxon at that rank - for example, the name ''Papilio prorsa'' Linnaeus, 1758 is a junior synonym of ''Papilio levana'' Linnaeus, 1758, being names for different seasonal forms of the species now referred to as ''Araschnia lev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black-necked Stilt
The black-necked stilt (''Himantopus mexicanus'') is a locally abundant shorebird of American wetlands and coastlines. It is found from the coastal areas of California through much of the interior western United States and along the Gulf of Mexico as far east as Florida, then south through Central America and the Caribbean to Brazil, Peru and the Galápagos Islands, with an isolated population, the Hawaiian stilt, in Hawaii. The northernmost populations, particularly those from inland, are migratory, wintering from the extreme south of the United States to southern Mexico, rarely as far south as Costa Rica; on the Baja California peninsula it is only found regularly in winter. Some authorities, including the IUCN, treat it as a subspecies of ''Himantopus himantopus''. Taxonomy It is often treated as a subspecies of the common or black-winged stilt, using the trinomial name ''Himantopus himantopus mexicanus''. However, the AOS has always considered it a species in its own right, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hesperornithes
Hesperornithes is an extinct and highly specialized group of aquatic avialans closely related to the ancestors of modern birds. They inhabited both marine and freshwater habitats in the Northern Hemisphere, and include genera such as ''Hesperornis'', ''Parahesperornis'', ''Baptornis'', ''Enaliornis'', and ''Potamornis'', all strong-swimming, predatory divers. Many of the species most specialized for swimming were completely flightless. The largest known hesperornithean, ''Canadaga arctica'', may have reached a maximum adult length of . Hesperornitheans were the only Mesozoic avialans to colonize the oceans. They were wiped out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, along with enantiornitheans and all other non-avian dinosaurs, and many other diverse plant and animal groups. Anatomy and ecology Most of what is known about this group rests on analyses of single species, as few provide sufficiently complete fossils for analysis. Although some of the smaller and more basal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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