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| Aepyornithidae | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 8 2017, 09:17 PM (310 Views) | |
| Carlos | Aug 8 2017, 09:17 PM Post #1 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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ichthyoconodon.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/aepyornithidae-the-largest-maniraptors-of-madagascar/ https://circlesfan.tumblr.com/post/163968013832/aepyornithidae-the-largest-maniraptors-of |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| kusanagi | Aug 8 2017, 11:26 PM Post #2 |
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Adolescent
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Isotopes suggest A. was a wetland grazer as is par for the native name, voronpatra. Strangely very scant Malagasy lore survives of the lost vorunpatra, suggesting it was not a prey animal but suffered from human encroachment in other ways. Intuitively aepyornithids must have prevented elephants from colonising Madagascar as they are better at reaching islands than are hippopotamuses yet did not colonise Madagascar. It is hard to accept large tethytheres never landed there or faced stiff competition from either lemurs or the hippopotami with which they coexisted elsewhere ie. in the Mediterranean. Their skulls do not resemble those of moas, which look like those of the hoatzin, grouse etc specialised to snip tough twigs. Superficially ostrich-like ornithomimids also had skulls constructed to snip woody plant materials: could the deepness of A.'s beak compensate in some way for the weak palaeognathous palate? Though A. admittedly does resemble somewhat a frugivorous forest cassowary without a casque. How different from other ratites was A. and were its feet widely splayed (webbed?) compared to those of other tridactyl ratites? Were A. in the Mesozoic, people would be going All Yesterdays on that skull. What might have been the future for the clade? Think Deinocheirus perhaps? Edited by kusanagi, Aug 8 2017, 11:45 PM.
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| kusanagi | Aug 9 2017, 12:01 AM Post #3 |
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Adolescent
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Proapteryx does not show any volant traits as the only flying birds P. was compared to were ground dwelling rails, and not because of flight related characters. P. Is unlikely to have been a habitual burrower like Apteryx or a large, fast running cursor - is this revelatory? |
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| Carlos | Aug 9 2017, 07:18 AM Post #4 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Giant flightless birds preventing the arrival of elephants? Would explain why there are also no stegodonts in Australia. I admit I am skeptical, since there were apparently giant ratites in the european and african Cenozoic. We already talked about Proapteryx's volancy. |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| kusanagi | Aug 9 2017, 07:40 AM Post #5 |
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Adolescent
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The skull and habitat of Aepyornis are of more interest that the possible flight of Proapteryx. Feduccia and Heuvelmans both interpreted Aepyornis an an aquatic grazer whereas Feduccia interpreted Mullerornis as a cassowary analog. The large skulls of cassowaries and aepyornithids suggest this might have been the primitive mode of life for the aepyornithids as a whole, but the large bodied Aepyornis was probably doing something different as its overall morphology was more divergent. Those bite mechanics and postcrania need restudy. People don't realise how divergent aepyornithids and especially the NZ moa were, though at least in the case of the moas the long neck and large size were (probably) convergent upon ratites elsewhere. Neither the moas nor elephant birds were simply big ostriches: comparisons are better sought among large galloanseres, the edentulous and herbivorous theropods, sauropods and some of the ornithischians. To be honest I am even wondering if the similarity of A. to azdarchoids could indicate something dietary: the superficially similar swampland Deinocheirus had a wide bill and was found in association with fish scales, whilst Palaeotis combines a faunivorous tendency with a ratite morphotype. Of course the strongest resemblance of pterodactyloids to elephant birds is not related to feeding, Palaeotis is open to ecological interpretation (Pelecanimimus mimic?), the bill of Deinocheirus is still wider than that of Aepyornis and the associated fish scales might be a taphonomic artifact. But its worth reckoning. How easy can the isotopes tell a piscivore from a herbivore? I doubt any Holocene ratite was a predator of vertebrates but omnivory is not impossible. Palaeotis also needs restudy as it has been considered a link between lithornithids and ostriches (particularly) but never recovered as such in a cladistic analysis. Palaeotis resembles a crane and probably had a similar lifestyle. Crane-like birds also spawned cursorial eogruids and ornithomimids evolved from cursorial predators of small fauna (Pelecanimimus) so there is perhaps a trend that crane-like stalking foraging leads to ostrich- and moa-type theropods whereas other theropodan herbivores (galloanseres fowl, therizinosaurs, oviraptorosaurs) present a different morphology. It has to be considered how herbivorous adaptations evolved within the ratites before reconstructing diet. That probing invertivorous forms such as the kiwi and lithornithids could fit in near or among herbivores has a parallel in shorebirds where scolopacids are sister taxon of the herbivorous thinocorids, flying birds with crania convergent upon those of moa. Aepyornis hindlimb proportions recall Sylviornis and Diaphorapteryx, both of which dug up underground plant parts. Given that elephants consume a lot of rhizomes these limb proportions are not inconsistent with a proboscidean analog that kept the elephants out. The bill of Aepyornis does not resemble either bird. Edited by kusanagi, Aug 11 2017, 10:44 AM.
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7:26 PM Jul 10