Odontopteryx
| Odontopteryx | |
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Skull of Odontopteryx toliapica White areas are restored. |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Subclass: | Neornithes |
| Infraclass: | Neognathae |
| Order: | †Odontopterygiformes |
| Family: | †Pelagornithidae (but see text) |
| Genus: |
†Odontopteryx Owen, 1873 |
| Species | |
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O. toliapica Owen, 1873 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Species-level: |
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O. toliapica Owen, 1873
and see text
Genus-level:
"Odontornis" Owen, 1873 (nomen nudum)
Species-level:
Neptuniavis minor Harrison & C.A.Walker, 1977
Odontopteryx is a genus of the prehistoric pseudotooth birds or pelagornithids. These were probably rather close relatives of either pelicans and storks, or of waterfowl, and are here placed in the order Odontopterygiformes to account for this uncertainty.
One species of Odontopteryx has been formally described, but several other named taxa of pseudotooth birds might belong here too. The type species Odontopteryx toliapica is known from the Ypresian (Early Eocene) London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey (England) and slightly older rocks of the Ouled Abdoun Basin (Morocco). Its tarsometatarsus (e.g. specimen BMNH A4962) was for some time in the late 20th century believed to be from a giant procellariiform and called Neptuniavis minor, but specimen BMNH A44096 – the holotype skull described by Richard Owen in 1873 – was the first pelagornithid recognized as such, and not assigned to some other seabird lineage. It was still often allied with Sulidae (boobies and gannets) or Diomedeidae (albatrosses), to which it is quite certainly not closely related.
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