''Macranhinga'' is a genus of extinct

darter The darters, anhingas, or snakebirds are mainly tropical waterbirds in the family Anhingidae, which contains a single genus, ''Anhinga''. There are four living species, three of which are very common and widespread while the fourth is rarer and ...

s belonging to the Anhingidae. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''M. paranensis'', which was described on the basis of complete

tarsometatarsi The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...

and several dissociated skeletal elements. All the specimens come from the

Ituzaingó Formation The Ituzaingó Formation ( es, Formación Ituzaingó), in older literature also described as Entre Ríos or Entrerriana Formation, is an extensive geological formation of Late Miocene (Tortonian, or Huayquerian in the SALMA classification) age in ...

that crops out discontinuously along the eastern cliffs of the

Paraná River The Paraná River ( es, Río Paraná, links=no , pt, Rio Paraná, gn, Ysyry Parana) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Br ...

in northeastern Argentina, the river from which the

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

is derived.Noriega & Agnolín, 2008, p.275 The most striking feature of this bird is its large size, much greater than in all other known fossil or extant anhingas.Noriega, 2001, p.248 A second species, ''M. ranzii'' was described from the

Solimões Formation The Pebas Formation is a lithostratigraphic unit of Miocene age, found in western Amazonia. The formation extends over , including parts of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.Wesselingh et al., 2006 It is interpreted as representing the deposits ...

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

, Amazonian Brazil,Cozzuol, 2006 and this species was later found in the Ituzaingó Formation.Noriega & Agnolín, 2008, p.277

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q54810403 Anhingidae Tortonian life Miocene birds of South America Huayquerian Neogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Ituzaingó Formation Neogene Brazil Fossils of Brazil Fossil taxa described in 1992 Prehistoric bird genera