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The cretaceous birds of New Jersey cover

The cretaceous birds of New Jersey

Chapter 23: Order Procellariiformes?
By Storrs L. Olson
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Archaeology & AnthropologyScience - Biology

About This Book

This revision presents fossil avian material from Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) marine deposits of New Jersey, incorporating newly collected specimens from the Inversand marl pits and reexamining century-old types. About eight genera and nine species are recognized, most assigned to a primitive charadriiform-like assemblage provisionally referred to the form family Graculavidae (including genera such as Graculavus, Telmatornis, Anatalavis, Laornis, and Palaeotringa). A new family, Tytthostonychidae, and the genus and species Tytthostonyx glauconiticus are proposed for a distinctive humerus possibly allied to procellariiform or pelecaniform birds. The fauna appears neognathous but cannot be placed in modern families.

Order Procellariiformes?

Among the newly collected material from the Inversand pit is a singular avian humerus that cannot be assigned to the Graculavidae or to any other known family, fossil or modern. Although it is generally inadvisable to name even Paleogene birds on single elements, to say nothing of Cretaceous ones, the specimen under consideration here is superior to any of the other avian fossils yet collected from the Cretaceous of New Jersey, both in preservation and in diagnostic qualities, and it would seem incongruous to leave it innominate when practically all the other fragments from the same deposits have received names.

Figure 9.—Miscellaneous elements, a, Palaeotringa littoralis? (NJSM 11303), distal end of left humerus, palmar view; b, Graculavidae, genus and species indeterminate (NJSM 11302), distal end of left humerus, palmar view; c, proximal end of radius associated with b; d, Graculavus velox? (NJSM 11854), right carpometacarpus; e,f, Procellariiformes?, genus and species indeterminate (ANSP 15713), distal end of left ulna (e, external view;/dorsal view); g, Aves, incertae sedis (NJSM 12119), distal end of left femur, posterior view. (a,b,c,d, × 2; e,f,g, × 5; specimens coated with ammonium chloride to enhance detail.)

The most distinctive features of this specimen are the deep brachial depression and the incipient ectepicondylar spur, thus calling to mind both the Lari (Charadriiformes) and the Procellariiformes among modern birds. Among the Pelecaniformes it also bears a resemblance to the Phaethontidae and especially to the Eocene frigatebird Limnofregata (Fregatidae) (Olson, 1977).