''Valenticarbo'' is a supposed

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of extinct

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 lightweig ...

that lived during the Late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological 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 finally confirmed in ...

(c. 1.8 mya) of South

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. It contains only 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 specime ...

, ''V. praetermissus''. Harrison (1979) erected this genus because he found himself unable to assign a 19th-century plaster cast of a broken tarsometatarsus bone originally retrieved from

Siwalik Hills The Sivalik Hills, also known as the Shivalik Hills and Churia Hills, are a mountain range of the outer Himalayas that stretches over about from the Indus River eastwards close to the Brahmaputra River, spanning the northern parts of the Indian ...

sediments to modern cormorants. As the

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

itself is apparently lost, this makes the genus a '' nomen dubium''. Few other researchers have commented on this, most deciding not to discuss this

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

. Those that did chided Harrison's decision to assign an undiagnostic and possibly damaged cast as a type specimen of a new genus. Olson (1985) called it

"...very near the acme of zealotry for naming new species of fossil birds. It is highly doubtful that the genus ''Valenticarbo'' could be shown to be valid, even if a specimen of it did exist."

Carroll (1988) considers this "genus" a synonym of ''Phalacrocorax'', the modern cormorants. Given that fossil cormorants not assignable to ''Phalacrocorax'' are not known to have occurred later than Early Pliocene, this is likely to be correct, but the possibility that the original fossil was not of a cormorant at all cannot be discounted.

External links

* Carroll, Robert L. (1988): ''Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution''. W.H. Freeman and Company. * Harrison, C. J. O. (1979): The Pliocene Siwalik cormorant. ''Tertiary Research'' 2(2): 57–58. * Olson, Storrs L. (1985): Section X.G.5.d. Phalacrocoracidae. ''In:'' Farner, D.S.; King, J.R. & Parkes, Kenneth C. (eds.): ''Avian Biology'' 8: 207–208. Academic Press, New York. Phalacrocoracidae Prehistoric birds of Asia Controversial bird taxa Neogene birds of Asia Pliocene birds Quaternary birds of Asia Nomina dubia Fossil taxa described in 1979 {{Pelecaniformes-stub