Oryctos
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Accès privé :
| volume 4, 2002 |
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Gerald Mayr, A postcranial skeleton of Palaeopsittacus Harrison, 1982 (Aves incertae sedis) from the Middle Eocene of Messel (Germany). Oryctos 4, 75-82.
A nearly complete postcranial skeleton of Palaeopsittacus cf. georgei Harrison, 1982 (Aves incertae sedis) is described from the Middle Eocene of Messel, Germany. This is the first articulated skeleton assigned to Palaeopsittacus, which before was only known from few isolated bones from the Lower Eocene of England. Further, the new specimen is the first record of Palaeopsittacus outside the type locality Walton-on-the-Naze. Palaeopsittacus is not closely related to the Psittaciformes (parrots) to which it was originally assigned, though its true systematic affinities remain uncertain. In the morphology of the tarsometatarsus, the Eocene genus resembles Recent Podargidae (Caprimulgiformes). An isolated skull from Messel is figured which might also belong to Palaeopsittacus.
Keywords: fossil birds, Middle Eocene, Messel, Paleopsittacus georgei, new specimen
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