#phaethoquornithes

[new-dinosaurs]

Pakudyptes hakataramea Ando et al., 2024 (new genus and species)

(Limb bones of Pakudyptes hakataramea [scale bar = 10 mm], from Ando et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: Pakudyptes = small [in Māori] diver [in Greek]; hakataramea = Hakataramea Valley

Age: Oligocene (Chattian), about 24 million years ago

Where found: Otekaike Limestone, Canterbury, New Zealand

How much is known: Two forelimb bones and a femur (thigh bone). It is likely (though not certain) that these bones belong to the same individual.

Notes: Pakudyptes was a close relative of modern penguins. It was around the same size as the smallest extant penguins, those in the genus Eudyptula. In the wings of extant penguins, the elbow joint is stiffened to form an efficient paddle for use in swimming and diving, whereas the elbow joint of Pakudyptes appears to have been more flexible. However, the shoulder joint of Pakudyptes was more similar to that of modern penguins than that of older proto-penguins, suggesting that it had acquired some but not all of the diving adaptations exhibited by penguins today.

Reference: Ando, T., J. Robinson, C. Loch, T. Nakahara, S. Hayashi, M.D. Richards, and R.E. Fordyce. 2024. A new tiny fossil penguin from the Late Oligocene of New Zealand and the morphofunctional transition of the penguin wing. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/03036758.2024.2362283

[new-dinosaurs]

Phalacrocorax bakonyiensis Horváth et al., 2024 (new species)

(Type humerus [upper arm bone] of Phalacrocorax bakonyiensis, from Horváth et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: bakonyiensis = from the Bakony Mountains

Age: Miocene (Tortonian–Messinian)

Where found: Várhegy Cave No. 2, Veszprém, Hungary

How much is known: Three fragmentary humeri (upper arm bones), including one belonging to a juvenile individual.

Notes: Phalacrocorax is an extant genus of cormorants, a group of waterbirds that primarily catch prey by swimming underwater, propelling themselves with their feet. P. bakonyiensis was relatively small for a cormorant, being smaller than the extant great (P. carbo) and double-crested (Nannopterum auritum) cormorants, but larger than the pygmy cormorant (Microcarbo pygmaeus).

Remains of P. bakonyiensis were discovered in a cave, where they might have been accumulated as the remains of prey that had been fed on by an owl. Additional cormorant fossils that might belong to P. bakonyiensis had been previously collected from the same site in 1991, but have since been lost.

Reference: Horváth, I., J. Futó, and J. Kessler. 2024. Phalacrocorax bakonyiensis n. sp., a new species of cormorant from the Late Miocene of Hungary. Ornis Hungarica 32: 222–230. doi: 10.2478/orhu-2024-0016

[new-dinosaurs]

Prophaethon waltonensis Mayr & Kitchener, 2024 (new species)

(Specimens of Prophaethon waltonensis [scale bars = 10 mm], from Mayr and Kitchener, 2024)

Meaning of name: waltonensis = from Walton-on-the-Naze

Age: Eocene (Ypresian), 54.6‒55 million years ago

Where found: London Clay Formation, Essex, U.K.

How much is known: Two partial skeletons, together representing several vertebrae and some limb bones.

Notes: P. waltonensis was a close relative of extant tropicbirds, a group of seabirds with long, streamer-like tail feathers. It was smaller than the only other previously named species of Prophaethon, P. shrubsolei (which is also known from the London Clay Formation), and also differs from it in details of its vertebrae and hindlimb bones.

Based on remains of P. shrubsolei, members of the genus Prophaethon were probably better adapted for swimming than modern tropicbirds (which may rest on the water's surface but primarily catch prey by diving from the air) and might have lacked their streamer-like tail feathers.

Reference: Mayr, G. and A.C. Kitchener. 2024. A new species of the Prophaethontidae (Aves, Phaethontiformes) from the early Eocene London Clay. Historical Biology advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/08912963.2024.2418895

[new-dinosaurs]

Ardenna buchananbrowni Tennyson et al., 2024 (new species)

(Type specimen of Ardenna buchananbrowni, from Tennyson et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: buchananbrowni = for John Buchanan-Brown [discoverer of one of the two known specimens]

Age: Pliocene (Piacenzian), 3.06–3.36 million years ago

Where found: Tangahoe Formation, Taranaki, New Zealand

How much is known: Partial skeletons of two individuals, together representing most of the skull, much of the forelimb skeleton, and several vertebrae.

Notes: Ardenna is a genus of extant petrels. These seabirds feed on fishes, crustaceans, and cephalopods using a variety of foraging styles, including grabbing prey while swimming on the water's surface and diving underwater to pursue them. Within the genus Ardenna, the short-tailed (A. tenuirostris) and sooty shearwaters (A. grisea) have particular anatomical specializations for diving, such as flattened humeri (upper arm bones).

A. buchananbrowni also exhibits these adaptations in its skeleton, making it the oldest known diving-specialized member of this genus. It was smaller than most extant Ardenna species, and lived alongside a larger extinct species that lacked diving specializations, A. davealleni.

Reference: Tennyson, A.J.D., R.B. Salvador, B.M. Tomotani, and F.G. Marx. 2024. A new diving Pliocene Ardenna shearwater (Aves: Procellariidae) from New Zealand. Taxonomy 4: 237–249. doi: 10.3390/taxonomy4020012

[new-dinosaurs]

Pterodroma zinorum Rando et al., 2024 (new species)

(Skull of Pterodroma zinorum, from Rando et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: zinorum = for Paul Alexander Zino and Francis Zino [Portuguese ornithologists]

Suggested common name: Azorean little gadfly petrel

Age: Holocene (Meghalayan)

Where found: The Azores archipelago (at least on Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico, Terceira, and São Miguel)

How much is known: At least three partial skeletons including nearly complete skulls and multiple limb bones. Hundreds of isolated bones (mainly limb bones and some skull fragments) are also known, though it is unclear how many individuals are represented by these.

Notes: Pterodroma is the genus of gadfly petrels, a group of small- to medium-sized seabirds known for their fast, erratic flight. They are found across the world's oceans, but are most diverse in the Atlantic Basin. Their diet consists mainly of soft-bodied prey such as squid that they capture near the ocean's surface, and they only visit land to breed on islands.

Currently, three species of Pterodroma breed in two of the Macaronesian archipelagos in the North Atlantic, but a new study on their fossil record shows that the genus was once more widespread across Macaronesia in historical times and included at least one now-extinct species, the newly-named P. zinorum.

P. zinorum was slightly smaller than the average city pigeon and smaller than most other Atlantic Pterodroma species, being around the same size as Zino's petrel (P. madeira), which breeds on the island of Madeira in Macaronesia today. Compared to P. madeira, P. zinorum had slightly shorter wings and feet, as well as a taller and more curved tip of the beak. Radiocarbon dating of its bones indicate that P. zinorum survived to at least sometime within the 12th–17th Centuries. The exact cause of its extinction is unknown, but was likely human-driven given the recent timing and the fact that petrels are often vulnerable to disturbance of their nesting sites by humans and introduced predators.

Reference: Rando, J.C., H. Pieper, F. Pereira, E. Torres-Roig, and J.A. Alcover. 2024. Petrel extinction in Macaronesia (North-East Atlantic Ocean): the case of the genus Pterodroma (Aves: Procellariiformes: Procellariidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 202: zlae123. doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae123

[new-dinosaurs]

Eudyptula wilsonae Thomas et al., 2023 (new species)

(Skulls of Eudyptula wilsonae, from Thomas et al., 2023)

Meaning of name: wilsonae = for Kerry-Jayne Wilson [New Zealand ornithologist and conservationist]

Age: Pliocene (Piacenzian), 3.06–3.36 million years ago

Where found: Tangahoe Formation, Taranaki, New Zealand

How much is known: Skulls of two individuals, one belonging to a juvenile nearing adult size.

Notes: Eudyptula is the genus of little penguins, the smallest extant penguins in the world. Found in Australia and New Zealand, two extant species of little penguins are recognized by some taxonomic authorities, whereas others consider them a single species.

E. wilsonae represents the oldest member of this genus known from the fossil record. In terms of its size and anatomy, it was very similar to modern little penguins, but it had a more slender skull overall. The discovery of E. wilsonae supports previous hypotheses that the ancestors of today’s little penguins originated in New Zealand before dispersing to Australia.

Reference: Thomas, D.B., A.J.D. Tennyson, F.G. Marx, and D.T. Ksepka. 2023. Pliocene fossils support a New Zealand origin for the smallest extant penguins. Journal of Paleontology advance online publication. doi: 10.1017/jpa.2023.30

[new-dinosaurs]

Clymenoptilon novaezealandicum Mayr et al., 2023 (new genus and species)

(Type specimen of Clymenoptilon novaezealandicum [scale bar = 50 mm], from Mayr et al., 2023)

Meaning of name: Clymenoptilon = Clymene [mother of Phaethon in Greek mythology, referencing the extant tropicbird genus Phaethon] feather [in Greek]; novaezealandicum = from New Zealand

Age: Paleocene (Danian–Thanetian)

Where found: Waipara Greensand, Canterbury, New Zealand

How much is known: Partial skeleton of one individual, including the skull, the right wing, and several vertebrae.

Notes: Clymenoptilon was a close relative of extant tropicbirds, a group of seabirds with long, streamer-like tail feathers. Modern tropicbirds are restricted to equatorial regions, but fossils of their close relatives have been found all over the world, with Lithoptila from the Paleocene–Eocene of Morocco and Prophaethon from the Eocene of the United Kingdom being the most completely known. Although a previously described fossil of a smaller bird from the Waipara Greensand may represent another proto-tropicbird, Clymenoptilon provides the clearest evidence to date that members of this lineage were present in the Paleocene of New Zealand as well.

Clymenoptilon is one of the oldest proto-tropicbirds known and appears to have been less closely related to modern tropicbirds than Lithoptila and Prophaethon. Whereas Prophaethon was probably better adapted for swimming than modern tropicbirds (which may rest on the water's surface but primarily catch prey by diving from the air), Clymenoptilon may have been a less specialized swimmer than Prophaethon based on its hip anatomy, though further assessment of its swimming capabilities will depend on the discovery of its hindlimb bones, which are currently unknown.

Reference: Mayr, G., V.L. De Pietri, L. Love, A. Mannering, E. Crouch, C. Reid, and R.P. Scofield. 2023. Partial skeleton from the Paleocene of New Zealand illuminates the early evolutionary history of the Phaethontiformes (tropicbirds). Alcheringa advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/03115518.2023.2246528

[new-dinosaurs]

Afrocarbo Kennedy et al., 2023 (new genus)

(An individual of Afrocarbo africanus, photographed by Charles J. Sharp, under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Meaning of name: Afrocarbo = African Carbo [defunct genus name for the great cormorant, now in the genus Phalacrocorax]

Species included: A. africanus (reed cormorant, type species, previously in Microcarbo) and A. coronatus (crowned cormorant, previously in Microcarbo)

Age: Holocene (Meghalayan), extant

Where found: Freshwater and coastal habitats in Africa south of the Sahara

Notes: Afrocarbo is a genus of small cormorants, a group of waterbirds that primarily catch prey by swimming underwater, propelling themselves with their feet. Members of this genus are closely related to other small cormorants from Eurasia and Australasia, but can be distinguished from them by having red eyes and a larger patch of bare skin on the face.

In recent years, all of the small cormorants have been classified in the same genus, Microcarbo. However, a new study has estimated that the African small cormorants split from the others around 12 million years ago, in the middle of the Miocene. This is comparable to or older than the estimated divergence ages separating other currently recognized cormorant genera, so the authors suggest that the African species should be reassigned to their own genus, Afrocarbo.

Reference: Kennedy, M., A.T. Salis, S.S. Seneviratne, D. Rathnayake, L.J. Nupen, P.G. Ryan, S. Volponi, P. Lubbe, N.J. Rawlence, and H.G. Spencer. 2023. Phylogeny of the microcormorants, with the description of a new genus. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad041