As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 10 August 2017

FOSSILS OF UNKNOWN SONGBIRD SPECIES DISCOVERED IN 12,000-YEAR-OLD VOLCANO


BY JANICE WILLIAMS ON 7/27/17 AT 5:11 PM


Hundreds of years ago, various species of Bullfinch songbirds took flight and lived among the Azores archipelago, a group of nine major islands in the Atlantic Ocean about 900 miles away from Portugal. A number of the small bird species, known for their short and wide beak, were wiped out following Portuguese colonization of the archipelago in the 1400s. However, scientists recently found fossils of a new species of the Bullfinch songbird in a 12,000-year-old volcano on the Azores’ Graciosa Island.

An international team of researchers led by paleontologist Josep Antoni Alcover, from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, discovered the bones of the new extinct songbird species, Pyrrhula crassa, while excavating an enclave where lava once flowed within the volcano. Despite the small number of bones the scientists found, the remains discovered were sufficiently distinctive enough for the researchers to classify the songbird within its own unique species.

The report of the finding, published in the journal Zootaxa on Wednesday, focused specifically on how the team analyzed morphology of the bird’s beak to determine the new species—and its relatively large size. The researchers noted that the Pyrrhula crassa skull remains they found were significantly bigger than the skulls of other songbirds that once roamed the Azores, and of current living species of the bird. They also found the Pyrrhula crassa wing length to be bigger than the average songbird, suggesting this may have allowed it to fly in a way similar to that of larger birds living on São Miguel Island.



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