The Ampoza ground roller (''Brachypteracias langrandi'') was a species of

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 lightweigh ...

in the ground roller family

Brachypteraciidae The ground rollers are a small family of non-migratory near-passerine birds restricted to Madagascar. They are related to the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers. They most resemble the latter group, and are sometimes considered a sub-family of ...

. It is known only from a single

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 ...

fossil discovered in 1929 in southwest

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. Little is known about the species, but it is suggested that the bird's habitat becoming more arid was a contributing factor in its demise.

Taxonomy and systematics

The genus name is derived from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''brakhupteros'', meaning short-winged.Jobling, J. A. (2017)
''Brachypteracias'' in Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology
In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2017). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from www.hbw.com). The species was named in honour of Olivier Langrand, an ornithologist who had worked in Madagascar.

References

Brachypteracias Extinct birds of Madagascar Birds described in 1929 sv:Ampozamarkblåkråka {{Coraciiformes-stub