''Cygnus paloregonus'' is a fossil
swan
Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...
. It is an ancestor of, and distantly allied to, the
mute swan
The mute swan (''Cygnus olor'') is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurosiberia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is an introduced species in North America, home ...
. It is known from the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
from
Fossil Lake, Oregon
Fossil Lake (designated by the Bureau of Land Management as Fossil Lake Area of Critical Environmental Concern) is a dry lakebed in the remote high desert country of northern Lake County in the U.S. state of Oregon. During the Pleistocene epo ...
,
Froman's Ferry, Idaho
Glenns Ferry is a city in Elmore County, Idaho, United States. The population was 1,319 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Interstate 84 and the Snake River.
History
Glenns Ferry was one of the most famous and treacherous river cro ...
, and from Arizona. It is referred to by
Hildegarde Howard
Hildegarde Howard (April 3, 1901 – February 28, 1998) was an American pioneer in paleornithology, mentored by the famous ornithologist, Joseph Grinnell, at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) and in avian paleontology.Joyce Harvey & Marilyn O ...
in Delacour's ''The Waterfowl of the World'' as "probably the mute type swan".
See also
*
List of fossil bird genera
Birds evolved from certain feathered theropod dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and non-avian dinosaurs except that some of the former survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event while the latter did not. For ...
References
External links
Pleistocene birds of North America
†paloregonus
Birds described in 1878
Fossil taxa described in 1878
Fossils of the United States
{{paleo-bird-stub