. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. Birds. USNM 496384 Figure 1. Parvicuculus cf. minor Harrison & Walker 1977, referred specimen MNHN-CB-17345 from the early Eocene of Conde-en-Brie, France, in plantar (A), dorsolateral (B), and dorsal (C) views, in comparison to the plantar (D) and dorsal (E) aspect of a tarsometatarsus from the early Eocene Nanjemoy Formation, North America (specimen USNM 496384, reversed to facilitate comparisons; from Olson 1999, with permission of the author). A and B are SEM photographs, C is a picture of the sputtered specimen (which originally was whit
. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. Birds. USNM 496384 Figure 1. Parvicuculus cf. minor Harrison & Walker 1977, referred specimen MNHN-CB-17345 from the early Eocene of Conde-en-Brie, France, in plantar (A), dorsolateral (B), and dorsal (C) views, in comparison to the plantar (D) and dorsal (E) aspect of a tarsometatarsus from the early Eocene Nanjemoy Formation, North America (specimen USNM 496384, reversed to facilitate comparisons; from Olson 1999, with permission of the author). A and B are SEM photographs, C is a picture of the sputtered specimen (which originally was white). Scale bars = 5 mm. incisura intertrochlearis lateralis narrow. Contrary to the Primobucconidae (Mayr et al. 2004) and modern rollers Coracias, there is a foramen interosseus distalis (Fig. 2B). The fossa metatarsi I is situated at the beginning of the distal third of the bone. The trochlea metatarsi IV is much shorter than the trochlea metatarsi III, somewhat laterally splayed, and bears an elongated, plantarly projecting wing-like flange. The trochlea metatarsi III is approximately as long as it is wide, on the plantar surface the lateral rim reaches slightly farther proximad than the medial one. The trochlea metatarsi II is broken but the remaining parts indicate that it was more plantarly deflected than the trochlea metatarsi IV. Discussion Although specimen MNHN-CB-17345 is slightly smaller than the holotype of Parvicuculus minor, the size difference may be due to individual variation. We ten- tatively assign it to P. minor Harrison & Walker 1977, as it does not exhibit signif- icant morphological differences from that species. As noted by Olson & Feduccia (1979) and Baird & Vickers-Rich (1997), the tar- sometatarsus of Parvicuculus is very different from that of the Musophagidae and Cuculidae. Harrison & Walker (1977) did not list any characters supporting their classification, and Harrison (1982) also failed to present derived characters that support t
Size: 920px × 2715px
Photo credit: © Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1893
