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Concept
Tympanonesiotes
Résumé
Tympanonesiotes is a somewhat doubtfully valid 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.
Only a single species, Tympanonesiotes wetmorei, is known to date. The only known specimen (USNM 16809), a distal right tarsometatarsus end, was found in the Cooper River near Drum Island (Charleston) at Charleston, South Carolina (United States). At first it was believed to be from the Early Miocene Hawthorne Formation, but as it seems its actual age cannot be precisely determined: For one thing, no Hawthorne Formation deposits were known in the region where the fossil was found. However, close to its type locality, fossils of Late Miocene animals have been found reworked from a now-eroded layer of rock into older deposits, such as the Chattian (Late Oligocene) sediments of the Cooper or Chandler Bridge Formation where the specimen of T. wetmorei was presumably found. The much-worn pseudotooth bird bone may also be such a reworked specimen.
The genus' scientific name references the type locality: it is derived from Ancient Greek tympanon (drum) + nesiotes (islander). The specific name honors the famous ornithologist Alexander Wetmore; thus the scientific name means roughly "Alexander Wetmore's Drum Island bird".
The bone is not very well preserved; for most of its length only the anterior surface remains. What remains of the trochleae is still preserved in good detail however. Altogether, the bone is very similar to that of the sympatric and probably contemporary Palaeochenoides mioceanus, only appearing a bit more albatross-like. The spread of the toes must have resembled that found in a fulmar quite a lot, by contrast. The thin-walled bone has a second toe trochlea that attaches notably kneewards from the others and is angled slightly outwards while the hallux was vestigial or missing, as is typical for the pseudotooth birds.
Source officielle
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