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Sequiwaimanu
''Sequiwaimanu'' (meaning "to follow ''Waimanu''") is an extinct genus of early penguin from the Waipara Greensand of New Zealand. The type species, ''S. rosieae'', was named and described by Gerald Mayr in 2018. Discovery and naming The holotype is CM 2016.6.1, and ''Sequiwaimanu'' is the fourth penguin species to be discovered from the Waipara Greensand in New Zealand, which originally held two species that were assigned to the taxon ''Waimanu''. The specimen was discovered within Claremont Estate, which was owned by Richard Goord at the time of its discovery. ''Sequiwaimanu rosieae'' was named and described by Mayr et al. (2018). Description ''Sequiwaimanu'' had leg bones similar to an unnamed giant penguin.Gerald Mayr; Vanesa L. De Pietri; Leigh Love; Al A. Mannering; R. Paul Scofield (2018). "A well-preserved new mid-Paleocene penguin (Aves, Sphenisciformes) from the Waipara Greensand in New Zealand". BioOne COMPLETE. 1 November 2017 See also * 2018 in paleontology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muriwaimanu
''Muriwaimanu'' is an extinct genus of early penguin from the Paleocene Waipara Greensand of New Zealand. Only the type species ''M. tuatahi'' is known. Etymology The name ''Muriwaimanu'' comes from ''muri'', Māori for "after", and ''Waimanu'', referring to the fact that the fossils come from younger strata than ''Waimanu''. Discovery and naming The holotype was discovered in 1980 within the Waipara Greensand near the Waipara River, in Canterbury, New Zealand, and it was initially named ''Waimanu tuatahi'' by Slack et al. (2006).Slack, K.E., Jones, C.M., Ando, T., Harrison G.L., Fordyce R.E., Arnason, U. and Penny, D. (2006). "Early Penguin Fossils, plus Mitochondrial Genomes, Calibrate Avian Evolution." ''Molecular Biology and Evolution'', 23(6): 1144-1155.PDF fulltext |
Paleocene
The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''palaiós'' meaning "old" and the Eocene Epoch (which succeeds the Paleocene), translating to "the old part of the Eocene". The epoch is bracketed by two major events in Earth's history. The K–Pg extinction event, brought on by an asteroid impact (Chicxulub impact) and possibly volcanism (Deccan Traps), marked the beginning of the Paleocene and killed off 75% of species, most famously the non-avian dinosaurs. The end of the epoch was marked by the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which was a major climatic event wherein about 2,500–4,500 gigatons of carbon were released into the atmosphere and ocean systems, causing a spike in global temperatures and ocean acidification. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany and mycology, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, generally pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same genetic individual. A holotype is not necessarily "ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Mayr
Gerald Mayr is a German palaeontologist who is Curator of Ornithology at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse. He has published extensively on fossil birds, especially the Paleogene avifauna of Europe.Mayr, Gerald (2016). Avian evolution: the fossil record of birds and its paleobiological significance. Topics in Paleobiology. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 306. . He is an expert on the Eocene fauna of the Messel pit. In 2022, alongside Thomas Lechner and Madelaine Böhme, Mayr described '' Allgoviachen tortonica'', a new genus and species of anatid bird from the Hammerschmiede clay pits of Bavaria, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu .... Below is a list of taxa that Mayr has contributed to naming: References German paleontologists Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waimanu
''Waimanu'' is a genus of early penguin which lived during the Paleocene, soon after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, around 62–60 million years ago. It was about the size of an emperor penguin (1 metre (3.3 ft)). It is one of the most important bird fossils for understanding the origin and evolution of birds because of the time period it comes from, and the position of penguins near the base of the bird family tree. ''Waimanu'' was a very early member of the Sphenisciformes, the order that includes modern penguins. However, although it was probably flightless like all modern penguins, with wings specialized for wing-propelled diving, its wing bones do not yet show the extreme specializations modern penguins have for an aquatic lifestyle. It may have resembled a flightless loon or diver in body shape, and possibly the great auk in its manner of locomotion. Discovery ''Waimanu'' was discovered in the Basal Waipara Greensand near the Waipara River, in Canterbury, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. Phylogeneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a small portion of its population extending slightly north of the equator (within a quarter degree of latitude). Highly adapted for life in the ocean water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey. They spend about half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri''): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin (''Eudyptula minor''), also known as the fairy pen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waipara Greensand
The Waipara Greensand is a geological rock unit found in Canterbury, New Zealand. It dates from just after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the Selandian and Thanetian, around 62–58 million years ago in the Palaeocene. It is well known for its fossils, particularly for containing the oldest penguins (Sphenisciformes) and also containing shark and fish fossils. Geology The Waipara Greensand is a fine to medium-grained, richly glauconitic quartzose sandstone. It crops out throughout North Canterbury. It has been interpreted as having been deposited in a shallow marine setting under conditions of very slow sedimentation. It is deepest in the Waipara River area, where it reaches a thickness of about , thinning to the south and north. The Waipara Greensand are Thanetian and Selandian in age (62 to 58 Mya). The top of the Waipara Greensand marks the Teurian– Waipawan New Zealand stage boundary, which is correlated internationally with the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of island countries, sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The Geography of New Zealand, country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps (), owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. Capital of New Zealand, New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and subsequently developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2018 In Paleontology
Flora Plants Fungi Cnidarians Research * New three dimensionally Phosphatic fossilization, phosphatized Micropaleontology#Microfossils, microfossils of Crown jellyfish, coronate scyphozoan ''Qinscyphus necopinus'', including a new type of fossil embryo, are described from the Cambrian (Fortunian) Kuanchuanpu Formation (China) by Shao ''et al.'' (2018), who interpret their findings as indicating that ''Qinscyphus'' underwent Marine larval ecology#Larval development strategies, direct development. * A study on the Morphology (biology), morphology of the Conulariida, conulariid species ''Carinachites spinatus'' based on a new specimen collected from the lower Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation (China) is published by Han ''et al.'' (2018). * Revision of Scleractinia, stony corals from the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian) Oehrli Formation (Austria and Switzerland) is published by Baron-Szabo (2018), who compares this fauna with five additional Berriasian coral faunas. New taxa Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sphenisciformes
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a small portion of its population extending slightly north of the equator (within a quarter degree of latitude). Highly adapted for life in the ocean water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey. They spend about half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri''): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin (''Eudyptula minor''), also known as the fairy peng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Penguins
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and recover. As a species' potential Range (biology), range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxon, Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the Fossil, fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. Over five billion species are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, possibly many times more if microorganisms are included. Notable extinct animal species include Dinosaur, non-avian dinosaurs, Machairodontinae, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths. Through evolution, species arise through the process of specia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
