Gavia egeriana is an extinct species of loon from the Miocene epoch, where the holotype was found in Dolnice, Czech Republic dating to the Burdigalian. The holotype consisted of two distal ends of the humeri bones.[1] Other more completed material has been found in the Calvert Formation from the Chesapeake Group in the United States, with possible material from the Pungo River Formation from North Carolina. These material consist of the right coracoid and nearly two-thirds of a right ulna and date to the Langhian.[2] G. egeriana was a very small species of loon and it was the earliest, possibly the ancestral species that gave raise to the other species in the genus.[2][3]

Gavia egeriana
Temporal range: Burdigalian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gaviiformes
Family: Gaviidae
Genus: Gavia
Species:
G. egeriana
Binomial name
Gavia egeriana
P. Švec, 1982

References edit

  1. ^ Švec, P. (1982). "Two new species of diving birds from the Lower Miocene of Czechoslovakia". Časopis pro mineralogii a geologii. 27: 243–260.
  2. ^ a b Olson, S. L.; Rasmussen, P. C. (2001). "Miocene and Pliocene birds from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina". Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. 90: 233–365.
  3. ^ Mlíkovský, Jiří (1998). "A new loon (Aves: Gaviidae) from the middle Miocene of Austria" (PDF). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien, Serie A: 331–339.