Pelagornis
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Pelagornis Temporal range: Late Oligocene– (Chattian–Gelasian) 25–2.5 Ma |
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Replica of a P. miocaenus skeleton at the NMNH No complete skeletons are known of any pseudotooth bird, and most fossils of these thin-boned animals are broken and crushed. |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | †Odontopterygiformes |
| Family: | †Pelagornithidae |
| Genus: |
†Pelagornis Lartet, 1857 |
| Type species | |
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†Pelagornis miocaenus Lartet, 1857 |
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| Species | |
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†P. miocaenus Lartet, 1857 |
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| Synonyms | |
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see text |
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†P. miocaenus Lartet, 1857
†P. mauretanicus Mourer-Chauviré & Geraads, 2008
†P. chilensis Mayr & Rubilar, 2010
†P. sandersi Ksepka, 2014
and see text
see text
Pelagornis is a widespread genus of the prehistoric pseudotooth birds. 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.
The fossil specimens show that P. miocaenus was one of the large pseudotooth birds, hardly less in size than Osteodontornis or the older Dasornis. Its head must have been about 40 cm (16 in) long in life, and its wingspan was probably more than 5 m (16 ft), perhaps closer to 6 m (20 ft). Unlike in its contemporary Osteodontornis but like in the older Pseudodontornis, between each two of Pelagornis's large "teeth" was a single smaller one. Pelagornis differed from Dasornis and its smaller contemporary Odontopteryx in having no pneumatic foramen in the fossa pneumotricipitalis of the humerus, a single long latissimus dorsi muscle attachment site on the humerus instead of two distinct segments, and no prominent ligamentum collaterale ventrale attachment knob on the ulna. Further differences between Odontopteryx and Pelagornis are found in the tarsometatarsus: in the latter, it has a deep fossa of the hallux' first metatarsal bone, whereas its middle-toe trochlea is not conspicuously expanded forward. The salt glands inside the eye sockets were extremely large and well-developed in Pelagornis. From the humerus pieces of specimen LACM 127875, found in the Eo-Oligocene Pittsburg Bluff Formation near Mist, Oregon (United States), P. miocaenus differs in an external tuberosity that is not as much extended shoulderwards and that is separated from the elbow end by a wider depression. The head of the humerus is turned more to the inward side and the large protuberance found there is not as far towards the end. The Waipara River humerus mentioned above agrees with P. miocaenus in that respect. If the Oregon fossils are related to Cyphornis and/or Osteodontornis, and if the traits as found in P. miocaenus and the New Zealand specimen are apomorphic, the latter two may indeed be very close relatives.
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