Published in

Taylor and Francis Group, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 4(32), p. 971-974

DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2012.664596

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

First giant bony-toothed bird (Pelagornithidae) from Australia

Journal article published in 2012 by Erich M. G. Fitzgerald, Travis Park ORCID, Trevor Henry Worthy ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The Pelagornithidae, or ‘giant bony-toothed birds,’ are enigmatic extinct seabirds with a long history spanning the late Paleocene–late Pliocene (Harrison, 1985; Mourer-Chauvir´e and Geraads, 2008, 2010; Bourdon, 2011). In parallel with their extensive chronostratigraphic distribution, pelagornithids have thus far been recorded from all continents with the notable exception of Australia (Mayr, 2011; contra Boessenecker and Smith, 2011). Here we document the first evidence of Pelagornithidae in Australia: a diagnostic Pelagornis tibiotarsus and non-associated fragmentary appendicular elements from the Mio–Pliocene of Beaumaris, Victoria (Fig. 1). This discovery confirms the distribution of pelagornithids on every continent and the global distribution of the genus Pelagornis during the late Neogene. ; Erich M. G. Fitzgerald, Travis Park, and Trevor H. Worthy