Ratites, Previously Terror Birds

I was given an unfortunate name.

It's strange that such neotenous features as the palaeognathous palate does not occur in other flightless birds that are clearly not related to any ratites.

White Shite

I think it is self inflicted. Let's see your birth certificate. Let's see if the name 'In2home User' is there anywhere.

According to a review of the evidence by Feduccia (1996), the paleognathus palate is 'now known to be the primitive avian palate.' If so, then the ratites, although possibly closely related, is paraphyletic because they are defined on the basis of symplesiomorphs. Even if they are closely related (which does not preclude the possibility of paraphyly), it does not follow that flightlessness evolved only once within this group. Flightlessness has been shown to have arisen independently many different times in different avian lineages. It is a highly homoplastic character.

<<They (the shorebirds) then had an explosive evolution producing all modern linages within about 10,000 million year>>

ten thousand million years? I'll assume that this is a typo. what was the real number?

eric l.

Okay, let's look at the facts.

1) Ostriches first developed in Euope, as Africa didn't attach to Eurasia until well into the Oligocene, if not later.

Check any book on Messel.

2) Madigascar was never attached to Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous, and the ratites there don't have a fossil record prior to the Pleistocene.

3) According to the Scientific American magizine, the moas are less closely related to kiwis than the latter are to emus. This was based on DNA evidence.

4) New Zealand sank below the waves during the Tertiary, and only a few island existed before the beginning of volcanism created the two large island we know and love.

Hence, we can conclude that for Ostriches and elephant birds at least that they couldn't have possibly 'walked' to where they are....or in the case of elephant birds, were.

...and don't razz me about the fact that ostriches did indeed walk to Africa from Asia, that's not what I meant.

eric l.

Oops, your right: 1 million years. By the way, Alan Feduccia's theories are well supported by the fossil record, and he is a master of this subject as is Storrs. In 'Explosive Evolution in Tertiary Birds and Mammals' Science Feb. 1995, he explains '(birds)were subject to a late Cretaceous demise and subsequent bottleneck, and underwent a dramatic reorganization in the early Tertiary, perhaps with initial landbird and shorebird decent. The explosive evolution paralleled that of the mammals, producing all modern lineages of birds within 10 million years... '

I'd like to underline the 'initial landbird' part but don't know how on this mail program. Anyway, that land bird is not mentioned again. He finds that most birds could have desended from 3 Eocene shorebird 'Mosaics': Juncitarsus, a shorebird flamingo, Presbyornis, a shorebird- duck, and Rhynchaeites, a shorebird-ibis.

Actually this one point is not critical, but what I'm wondering (regarding this) is why the finding that most Cretaceous bird fossils are K/T extinct Enantiornithines (opposite birds) would mean that all non-flying birds died off in the K/T as well? A bird like one we can observe in the present, the rhea, should have been able to survive for the same reasons. Note: see my description of the rhea on part 2 of message 1, I'm hoping that doesn't get lost. Thanks,

Evan Robinson

Storrs list 3 families of birds that he feels could be placed in Struthionidae: Geranoididae, Eoguidae and Ergilornithidae. Geranoididae (only legs) from early and mid-Eocene North America, Eogruidae from late Eocene and early Oligocene of Central Asia. Perhaps the Geranoididae dodged the Gastornidae and crossed the land bridge to Asia thus becoming Eogruidae. My favorite is Ergilornithidae, which consists of several species of large running birds. In these birds the hind and inner toes are lost, just as in ostriches! They are known from early Oligocene of Asia and late Miocene and Pliocene of Asia and Europe.

The oldest fossils(I thought) that are attributed to Struthio are a toe bone & eggshell fragments from Miocene Turkey. I wonder if these fossils could actually belong to the Ergilornithidae, and that their eggs just look like the ostrich's. Next we have late Miocene Southwestern USSR, late Miocene of Tunisia, dispersed to southernmost parts of Africa by early Pliocene. Henceforth various species of Struthio are found all over Greece, Eastern Europe, India and China. Are these not Asian?

Anyway, what I'm saying is that these flightless birds(this is just ostriches) covered the world, and perhaps they were good swimmers. Joel Cracraft's 1974 paper suggests that the ratites started in South America and spread all over through Anarctica. He suggests (with references)that Africa and South America and did not separate from Antarctica until the Late Cretaceous. Are not the dispersal of various non-flying animals the proof of land bridges?

The Aepyornis and New Zealander's definitely present the greatest mysteries. I have some thoughts, but I'm out of time for now.

Thanks,

Evan Robinson http://member.xoom.com/TheEggSpot/ostriches.htm

Juncitarsus is, according to Feduccia, a stilt close to the origin of flamingos. The basal outgroup to Phoenicipitriformes+Juncitarsus is the extant banded stilt of Australia. The linking of the banded stilt to flamingos has been severely criticised by both cladists and non-cladists. However, I wonder if these criticisms considered Juncitarsus?

Presbyornis, a shorebird-

No, it's a duck closer to mainstream ducks than the magpie goose. Anseriformes are not related to Charadriiformes. With Galliformes, they form the basal Neognath group Galloanserimorphae.

and Rhynchaeites, a shorebird-ibis.

I'm not familiar with this animal. However, it makes sense that ibises (and presumably related waders) are derived from Charadriiformes.

White Shite

Is your name really Cal King?

Palaeognaths are paraphyletic. What I am arguing is that ratites are monophyletic and the most basal of extant birds. Tinamous are, I think, closer to Neornithes but represent what the most recent common ancestor of all Neornithes would resemble.

Even if they are closely related

Flightlessness is not enough to suggest monophyly. However, Ratites have certain features that do suggest this. If all ratites are flightless and so are all fossil ratites, then unless a volant ratite becomes known it is the most logical suggestion that they became flightless once. Of course, flightlessness may have occurred more than once in ratites but that is impossible to test.

White Shite

I don't see how this contradicts anything.

They had to have been present before the Pleistocene. The time of divergence of the Neornithes is unknown (due to the fossil records of birds) and I have no problem accepting that the ancestors of ratites were present quite early in the Cretaceous. Ratites could have spread anywhere.

evidence.

I am skeptical of any evidence based on anything other than morphology (either by cladistic analysis or otherwise). I came across a web page according to which moas and kiwis share several skeletal characters.

That could explain why the two ratite lineages of New Zealand are specialized (kiwis as insectivores and moas as browsers).

White Shite

Nor I. If ratites are monophyletic, and arose in the southern continents, then it would seem from this that ostrich ancestors spread to Europe when the two continents got close enough to each other, then the ostriches re-entered Africa later.

What are the grounds for including the elephant birds among the ratites? Did they have the palaeognathous palate, for example? Don't any non-ratites have it?

Cladistic or 'biological clock'?

Which ones?

Does this mean it was almost modern size before that?

And the ice ages created the one big island which is no longer with us.

I wonder

No, but he didn't complain about the name like you did about 'In2home User'