Late Quaternary prehistoric birds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For a list of early taxa of birds known only from fossils, see Fossil birds. For birds that have gone extinct since the year 1500 A.D./C.E., please refer to Extinct birds.

Prehistoric birds are various taxa of birds that became extinct before recorded history, or more precisely, before they could be studied alive by bird scientists. They are known from subfossil remains and sometimes folk memory, as in the case of Haast's Eagle from New Zealand.

Artist's rendition of a giant Haast's eagle attacking New Zealand moa.
Artist's rendition of a giant Haast's eagle attacking New Zealand moa.

Birds (Aves) are generally believed to have evolved from feathered dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and dinosaurs except of course that the former survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event and the latter did not. For the purposes of this article, a "bird" is considered to be any member of the clade Neornithes, that is the bird lineage as exists today. The other lineages of the Aves also became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

Taxon extinctions taking place before the Late Quaternary happened in the absence of significant human interference. Rather, reasons for extinction are stochastic abiotic events such as bolide impacts, climate changes, mass volcanic eruptions etc. Alternatively, species may have gone extinct due to evolutionary displacement by successor or competitor taxa - it is notable for example that in the early Neogene, seabird biodiversity was much higher than today; this is probably due to competition by the radiation of marine mammals after that time. The relationships of these ancient birds are often hard to determine, as many are known only from very fragmentary remains and due to the complete fossilization precludes analysis of information from DNA, RNA or protein sequencing.

For further discussion, see main article Fossil birds

Contents

This page lists bird taxa that have been become extinct before they could be researched by science, but nonetheless survived into (geologically) recent times. Their remains are not or not completely fossilized and therefore may yield organic material for molecular analyses to provide additional clues for resolving their taxonomic affiliations. As these species' extinction coincided with the expansion of Homo sapiens across the globe, in most (but not necessary all) cases, anthropogenic factors have played a crucial part in their extinction, be it through hunting, introduced predators or habitat alteration. It is notable that a large proportion of the species are from oceanic islands, especially in Polynesia. Bird taxa that evolved on oceanic islands are usually very vulnerable to hunting or predation by rats, cats, dogs or pigs - animals commonly introduced by humans -, as there evolved in the absence of mammalian predators and therefore only have rudimentary predator avoidance behavior. Many, especially rails, have additionally become flightless for the same reason and thus presented even easier prey.

The taxa in this list became extinct during the Late Quaternary - the Holocene or Late Pleistocene -, but before the period of global scientific exploration that started in the late 15th century. More precisely, their extinction was coincident with the expansion of Homo sapiens beyond Africa and Eurasia, i.e. this list basically deals with extinctions between 40000 BC and 1500 AD. They should be classified with the Wikipedia conservation status category "Prehistoric" in their individual accounts.

All of these are Neornithes.

The Ostrich and related ratites.

Up to 4 more undescribed species are known, but taxonomy is not fully resolved. A. maximus and/or A. medius probably survived until historic times.

The group that includes modern ducks and geese.

The group that includes modern chickens and quails.

Gulls, auks, shorebirds

The group that includes modern rails and cranes.

The diverse group that includes storks, herons and New World vultures.

The group that includes modern pelicans and cormorants.

  • Sulidae - Gannets and boobies
    • Extinct subspecies of extant species

The group that includes modern albatrosses, petrels and storm-petrels.

  • Procellariidae - Petrels
    • Extinct species of extant genera
    • Placement unresolved
      • Procellariidae sp. (Easter Island, East Pacific) - possibly extirpated population of extant species

  • Cacatuidae - Cockatoos
  • Psittacidae - Parrots, parakeets and lorikeets
    • Extinct species of extant genera
    • Extinct subspecies of an extant species
      • Virgin Islands Parrot (Amazona vittata subsp. indet.)
    • Placement unresolved
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. 1 (Easter Island)
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. 2 (Easter Island)
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. (Rota, Marianas)

Birds of prey

Nightjars and potoos

  • Caprimulgidae - Nightjars
    • Extinct species of extant genera
      • Cuban Parauque, Siphonorhis daiquiri (Cuba, West Indies) - possibly extant

Owlet-nightjars

Swifts and hummingbirds.

  • Apodidae - Swifts
    • Extinct species of extant genera
      • Mangaia Swiftlet, Aerodramus manuoi (Mangaia, Cook Islands) - formerly Collocalia

Kingfishers and related birds.

Owls and barn owls.

  • Meliphagidae - Honeyeaters
    • Prehistorically extinct species of Recently extinct genera
  • Turdidae - Thrushes
    • Extinct species of extant genera

  • Steadman, David William (2006): Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-77142-3

  1. ^ Wetmore, A. (1937). "Ancient records of birds from the island of St. Croix with observations on extinct and living of Puerto Rico". J. Agric. Univ. Puerto Rico 21: 5–16. 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Quaternary_prehistoric_birds"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.