Annakacygna (left) or Nasidytes (right)?
Voting ended onMar 9, 2023
Annakacygna hajimei, A. yoshiiensis
Artwork by @otussketching, written by @zygodactylus
Name Meaning: Swan from Annaka (Hajime’s or of Yoshii-machi)
Time: 11.5 million years ago (Tortonian stage of the Miocene epoch, Neogene period)
Location: Haraichi Formation, Annaka, Japan
Annakacygna was dubbed during its research “the ultimate bird”, and honestly, I don’t even blame the scientists for doing so - I may have even done the same. Both large species of swan, A. hajimei was about the size of a black swan, and A. yoshiiensis was larger than even the mute swan. They were weird in so many ways it boggles the mind: they were adapted for filter feeding in the water, their wings and tails were so flexible they could form a cradle for their young on their backs like modern mute swangs, said tails and wings were probably great and flashy display structures, its head was extremely large weird looking and had a slightly spoon-like bill, they had wide and heavy vertebrae but still had long and flexible necks, it may have even been a flightless bird or at least a poor flier based on its sternum and coracoids, though its scapula is extremely strong and unlike flightless animals - more research is needed to better understand this aspect of its mobility. That said, it did have very short wing birds, weirdly curved and short among birds, with weirdly shaped finger bones coming together to create weirdly formed curved wings. Its hips were arched up, creating a dip in its back, and it had narrow leg bones, allowing for efficient movement in the water like living *grebes and loons*. So while it had this whole weird display structure with its wings and tail going on, and its robust but long neck, and that strangely boat-shaped body (what the actual f-), it was zooming through the water like a grebe or loon. It had a similar beak to living shovelers, possibly, and it could move its jaw back and forth in a seesaw like motion, not like any living swans. It could then filter food through its jaws via this motion, eating a variety of plankton through soft lamellae within its bill. It was probably very social, given its display structures, and communicated both vocally (imagine the power of those calls with that robust neck) and visually. Annakacygna also took care of its young, extensively, keeping them on their back protected in their wings, to the point that they may not have spent much time on land (like living loons and grebes). It wasn’t a deep diver, but was stable at sea while foraging on food and moving along the surface of the water, living primarily in the ocean. Found in a marine environment, Annakacygna lived with sharks, seals, many kinds of whales, and desmostylians.
Artwork by @otussketching, written by @zygodactylus
Name Meaning: Ypresian Diver of Naze
Time: 55 million years ago (Ypresian stage of the Eocene epoch, Paleogene period)
Location: Walton Member, London Clay Formation, England
Nasidytes is the earliest known loon known via the fossil record, similar to other early fossil loons known from later times. It had a shorter and wider beak than living loons, and it had pleurocoels like most birds but unlike modern loons. It already had the weird wing proportions found in modern loons, and it had webbed feet similar to many water birds. Nasidytes probably wasn’t an aquatic pursuit predator, like its living relatives. Instead, it probably fed on marine invertebrates, making short foot-propelled dives for food. It lived near the coast, in a vibrant habitat filled with a wide variety of other early birds emerging right after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The London Clay Formation was an early tropical coastal forest, much like those found in Southeast Asia today. Some of Nasidytes’ neighbors included Danielsavis, a weird duck-screamer; diurnal raptors including the masillaraptorid Danielsraptor; early relatives of owls, trogons, paleognaths, and tropicbirds; the pseudotoothed bird Dasornis; and a wide variety of parrot-passerine relatives. Crocodilians, snakes, turtles, fish, sharks, and a few mammals also lived in this environment, including an early primate Platychoerops.