Oryctos
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Accès privé :
| volume 7, 2008 |
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Attila Ösi, Enantiornithine bird remains from the Late Cretaceous of Hungary. Oryctos 7, 55-60.
The recently documented vertebrate fauna from the Santonian Csehbánya Formation of Iharkút, (Bakony Mts, Hungary) provides the first occurrence of the extinct avian group Enantiornithes Walker, 1981 in the Upper Cretaceous of Central Europe. A nearly complete left femur and a complete right tarsometatarsus are referred here to Enantiornithes indet., and a distal fragment of a subadult left femur and a metatarsus III described here as Aves indet., represent the earliest known avian fossil record from Hungary. The isolated two femora and the fragmentary metatarsus III indicate the presence of very small terrestrial birds in the Santonian of Europe. The well-preserved femur documents that some members of the Hungarian enantiornithines retained the small size of their Early Cretaceous ancestors. The large enantiornithine tarsometatarsus supports the existence of a larger enantiornithine bird in the area, which may have been adapted to aquatic or semi-aquatic habitats.
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