''Chendytes lawi'' is an extinct, goose-sized flightless marine

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

, once common on the

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coast, the California

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, and possibly southern

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

. It lived in the

Pleistocene 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 ...

and survived into the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

. It appears to have gone extinct at about 450–250 BCE. The youngest direct radiocarbon date from a ''Chendytes'' bone fragment dates to 770–400 BCE and was found in an archeological site in

Ventura County Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...

. Its remains have been found in fossil deposits and in early coastal archeological sites. Archeological data from coastal California show a record of human exploitation of ''Chendytes lawi'' for at least 8,000 years. It was probably driven to extinction by hunting, animal predation, and loss of habitat. ''Chendytes'' bones have been identified in archaeological assemblages from 14 coastal sites, including two on

San Miguel Island San Miguel Island (Chumash: ''Tuqan'') is the westernmost of California's Channel Islands, located across the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, within Santa Barbara County, California. San Miguel is the sixth-largest of the eight Ch ...

and 12 in mainland localities. Hundreds of ''Chendytes'' bones and egg shells found in Pleistocene deposits on San Miguel Island have been interpreted as evidence that some of these island fossil localities were nesting colonies, one of which Guthrie dated to about 12,000 14C years (about 13,500–13,000 calibrated years B.P.). There is nothing in the North American archaeological record indicating a span of exploitation for any megafaunal genus remotely as long as that of ''Chendytes''. Chendytes lawi 5

Although originally thought to be a

seaduck The sea ducks (''Mergini'') are a tribe of the duck subfamily of birds, the Anatinae. The taxonomy of this group is incomplete. Some authorities separate the group as a subfamily, while others remove some genera. Most species within the group sp ...

in the tribe Mergini, analysis of ancient DNA sequences suggests that it is a basal member and a sister to the clade of extant dabbling ducks in the tribe Anatini, revealing an additional example of convergent evolution of characters related to feeding behavior among ducks. Head and beak morphology suggest ''C. lawi'' was an

invertivore Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγ ...

. Based on the large, robust morphology of the cervical vertebrae, skull, and bill, ''C. lawi'' specialized on sessile invertebrates and the species likely possessed "a remarkable ability to wrench off invertebrate animals attached to hard substrate". ''Chendytes milleri'' is an extinct species of ''Chendytes'' from the Early Pleistocene. Its remains have been found on

San Nicolas Island San Nicolas Island ( Spanish: ''Isla de San Nicolás''; Tongva: ''Haraasnga'') is the most remote of the Channel Islands, off of Southern California, 61 miles (98 km) from the nearest point on the mainland coast. It is part of Ventura Cou ...

in the Channel Islands. ''C. milleri'' was named in honor of

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Loye H. Miller, who first described the genus ''Chendytes''. ''C. milleri'' is smaller than ''C. lawi'' and the wings of ''C. milleri'' had not degenerated as much as those of ''C. lawi''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3667117 Merginae Extinct flightless birds Late Quaternary prehistoric birds Extinct animals of the United States Pleistocene birds of North America Holocene extinctions Extinct birds of North America Fossil taxa described in 1925 Taxa named by Loye H. Miller