TY - JOUR
T1 - Fossils reveal an early Miocene presence of the aberrant gruiform Aves: Aptornithidae in New Zealand
AU - Worthy, Trevor H.
AU - Tennyson, Alan
AU - Scofield, Richard
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - A member of the New Zealand endemic family (Aves: Aptornithidae) is described from the Early Miocene St Bathans Fauna of Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand. The new species, based on two thoracic vertebrae, is provisionally referred to the highly distinctive Late Pleistocene-Holocene extinct genus Aptornis Mantell, 1848 (in Quart J Geol Soc Lond 4:225-238, 1848). It differs from both Recent species by slightly smaller size, greater pneumaticity of the corpus vertebrae and differences of the processus spinosus and processus transversi. We refer a distal femur, another vertebral fragment, a phalange and tentatively a tibial fragment, also from the St Bathans Fauna, to this new taxon.
AB - A member of the New Zealand endemic family (Aves: Aptornithidae) is described from the Early Miocene St Bathans Fauna of Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand. The new species, based on two thoracic vertebrae, is provisionally referred to the highly distinctive Late Pleistocene-Holocene extinct genus Aptornis Mantell, 1848 (in Quart J Geol Soc Lond 4:225-238, 1848). It differs from both Recent species by slightly smaller size, greater pneumaticity of the corpus vertebrae and differences of the processus spinosus and processus transversi. We refer a distal femur, another vertebral fragment, a phalange and tentatively a tibial fragment, also from the St Bathans Fauna, to this new taxon.
KW - Aptornis
KW - Aptornithidae
KW - Bannockburn Formation
KW - Early Miocene
KW - New Zealand
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79958771904&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10336-011-0649-6
DO - 10.1007/s10336-011-0649-6
M3 - Article
VL - 152
SP - 669
EP - 680
JO - Journal of Ornithology
JF - Journal of Ornithology
SN - 2193-7192
IS - 3
ER -