The Anatomy and Taxonomy of the Exquisitely Preserved Green River Formation (Early Eocene) Lithornithids (Aves) and the Relationships of Lithornithidae

Nesbitt, Sterling J.; Clarke, Julia A.

doi:10.1206/0003-0090-406.1.1

Cited by 41 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…To generate this tree, we initially made a tree of extant birds by combining the backbone from Prum et al [60] with the finer-level topology of Jetz et al [61] as per the methods described in [79] using the R packages {ape} [75] and {phytools} [76]. This tree was reduced to only include the extant taxa in our sample with the "treedata" function in the {ape} package, then imported into Mesquite [80] where the extinct birds were added to the tree in the appropriate locations based on phylogenetic analyses from the literature [21,[81][82][83][84][85]. For each fossil, the age of the resulting node was automatically assigned by Mesquite by dividing in half the length of the branch to which the fossil was added.…”

Section: Specimen Ct Facility Reconstruction Steps Publicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Endocasts: Using Predicted Brain-Structure Volumes of Extinct Birds to Assess Neuroanatomical and Behavioral Inferences

2020

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The shape of the brain influences skull morphology in birds, and both traits are driven by phylogenetic and functional constraints. Studies on avian cranial and neuroanatomical evolution are strengthened by data on extinct birds, but complete, 3D-preserved vertebrate brains are not known from the fossil record, so brain endocasts often serve as proxies. Recent work on extant birds shows that the Wulst and optic lobe faithfully represent the size of their underlying brain structures, both of which are involved in avian visual pathways. The endocasts of seven extinct birds were generated from microCT scans of their skulls to add to an existing sample of endocasts of extant birds, and the surface areas of their Wulsts and optic lobes were measured. A phylogenetic prediction method based on Bayesian inference was used to calculate the volumes of the brain structures of these extinct birds based on the surface areas of their overlying endocast structures. This analysis resulted in hyperpallium volumes of five of these extinct birds and optic tectum volumes of all seven extinct birds. Phylogenetic ANCOVA (phyANCOVA) were performed on regressions of the brain-structure volumes and endocast structure surface areas on various brain size metrics to determine if the relative sizes of these structures in any extinct birds were significantly different from those of the extant birds in the sample. Phylogenetic ANCOVA indicated that no extinct birds studied had relative hyperpallial volumes that were significantly different from the extant sample, nor were any of their optic tecta relatively hypertrophied. The optic tectum of Dinornis robustus was significantly smaller relative to brain size than any of the extant birds in our sample. This study provides an analytical framework for testing the hypotheses of potential functional behavioral capabilities of other extinct birds based on their endocasts.

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Section: Specimen Ct Facility Reconstruction Steps Publicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Endocasts: Using Predicted Brain-Structure Volumes of Extinct Birds to Assess Neuroanatomical and Behavioral Inferences

2020

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“…Historically, ratites were thought to be a monophyletic sister clade to the volant tinamous (Cracraft 1974), but, despite remaining uncertainties in palaeognath relationships, recent molecular phylogenetic evidence strongly supports ratite paraphyly, implying as many as six independent losses of flight within this group based on these data and biogeographic scenarios (Harshman et al 2008;Baker et al 2014;Mitchell et al 2014;Nesbitt and Clarke 2016;Grealy et al 2017;Yonezawa et al 2017). Recent developmental work in ratites has focused on protein-coding regions underlying limb reduction (de Bakker et al 2013;Bickley and Logan 2014;Farlie et al 2017), and a recent study of loss of flight in Galapagos cormorants (Burga et al 2017), while identifying putative genic drivers of flightlessness, did not focus on possible roles of the noncoding genome in loss of flight (although see (Berger and Bejerano 2017)).…”

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confidence: 90%

“…extinct moas and elephant birds. All ratites show morphological similarities including forelimb reduction (ranging from moderate in ostrich and rheas to a complete absence in moas), reduced pectoral muscle mass associated with the absence of the sternal keel, and feather modifications, as well as generally larger body size (Houde 1986;Bickley and Logan 2014;Nesbitt and Clarke 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Convergent regulatory evolution and the origin of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds

Sackton

Grayson

Cloutier

et al. 2018

Preprint

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The relative roles of regulatory and protein evolution in the origin and loss of convergent phenotypic traits is a core question in evolutionary biology. Here we combine phylogenomic, epigenomic and developmental data to show that convergent evolution of regulatory regions, but not protein-coding genes, is associated with flightlessness in palaeognathous birds, a classic example of a convergent phenotype. Eleven new genomes, including a draft genome from an extinct moa, resolve palaeognath phylogeny and show that the incidence of independent, convergent accelerations among 284,000 conserved non-exonic elements is significantly more frequent in ratites than other bird lineages. Ratite-specific acceleration of conserved regions and measures of open chromatin across eight tissues in the developing chick identify candidate regulatory regions that may have modified or lost function in ratites. Enhancer activity assays conducted in the early developing chicken forelimb confirm that volant versions of a conserved element in the first intron of the TEAD1 gene display conserved enhancer activity, whereas an accelerated flightless version fails to drive reporter gene expression. Our results show that convergent molecular changes associated with loss of flight are largely regulatory in nature.

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“…34C) in that there is a marked fossa infratrochlearis, which excavates the processus pisiformis, and in that there is another fossa caudal of the processus pisiformis. As in lithornithids (Nesbitt & Clarke, 2016, fig. 15), the fovea carpalis caudalis is likewise well marked and very deep.…”

Section: Specimens From Maret (Belgium Early To Middle Selandian ~6mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Remarks. The palaeognathous Lithornithidae are known from early Eocene sites in Europe and from the Paleocene and early Eocene of North America, and currently nine unambiguously identified species in four genus-level taxa (Lithornis, Pseudocrypturus, Paracathartes, and Calciavis) are distinguished (Houde, 1988;Nesbitt & Clarke, 2016). A species from the Paleocene of Europe that was likened to the Lithornithidae is Fissuravis weigelti from Walbeck.…”

Section: Specimens From Templeuve (France Middle Thanetian ~58 Ma)mentioning

confidence: 99%

New Paleocene bird fossils from the North Sea Basin in Belgium and France

Mayr

Smith

2019

Geol. Belg.

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We describe new avian remains from Paleocene localities of Belgium and France. Four bones from the early to middle Selandian of Maret (Belgium) are among the earliest Cenozoic avian remains known from Europe and include the oldest temporally well constrained European records of the Gastornithidae, as well as tentative records of the palaeognathous Lithornithidae and the Ralloidea. A more comprehensive fossil assemblage from the middle Thanetian of Templeuve (France) contains multiple bones of the Lithornithidae as well as a record of the Pelagornithidae. Specimens from the latest Thanetian of Rivecourt-Petit Pâtis (France) are tentatively assigned to the Ralloidea and Leptosomiformes (cf. Plesiocathartes). Because of the fragmentary nature of the fossils, the taxonomic identity of a number of other specimens remains uncertain. We note, however, that Paleocene avifaunas of Europe and North America appear to have had different compositions and only a few taxa, such as the palaeognathous Lithornithidae, are known from both continents. This suggests that the very similar early Eocene avifaunas of Europe and North America are the result of early Cenozoic dispersal events.

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The Anatomy and Taxonomy of the Exquisitely Preserved Green River Formation (Early Eocene) Lithornithids (Aves) and the Relationships of Lithornithidae

Cited by 41 publications

References 79 publications

Beyond Endocasts: Using Predicted Brain-Structure Volumes of Extinct Birds to Assess Neuroanatomical and Behavioral Inferences

Beyond Endocasts: Using Predicted Brain-Structure Volumes of Extinct Birds to Assess Neuroanatomical and Behavioral Inferences

Convergent regulatory evolution and the origin of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds

New Paleocene bird fossils from the North Sea Basin in Belgium and France

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