. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geology. FLAMINGOS 309 Occurrence. Transitional Oligocene/Miocene deposits of France and Germany (Brodkorb 1963 : 272). A NEW LOWER MIOCENE AFRICAN FLAMINGO The collection of the British Museum (Natural History) contains some fragmentary avian material from the Lower Miocene of Rusinga Island in the Kenyan waters of Lake Victoria. A number of these fragments, mostly ends of long bones, appear referable to a single species of small flamingo, similar in size to the Recent Phoeniconaias minor. They consist of two mandibular fragments, one proxim
. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geology. FLAMINGOS 309 Occurrence. Transitional Oligocene/Miocene deposits of France and Germany (Brodkorb 1963 : 272). A NEW LOWER MIOCENE AFRICAN FLAMINGO The collection of the British Museum (Natural History) contains some fragmentary avian material from the Lower Miocene of Rusinga Island in the Kenyan waters of Lake Victoria. A number of these fragments, mostly ends of long bones, appear referable to a single species of small flamingo, similar in size to the Recent Phoeniconaias minor. They consist of two mandibular fragments, one proximal and three distal ends of humeri, one distal end of a femur, three distal ends of tibiotarsi, and five proximal and two distal ends of tarsometatarsi. The limb bones, which are mostly broken or crushed to some degree, show Httle difference from those of Phoeniconaias minor save that an almost complete proximal end of a tarsometatarsus shows the calcaneal ridges of the hypotarsus to be similar in proximal view to those of Recent species but only half to two-thirds their length. The jaw fragments, however, differ more from Phoeniconaias minor in their structure. The larger fragment (Figs 8A, 9A) is the posterior part of the upper jaw with most of the narial apertures, embedded in matrix at its posterior end. Its most significant feature is the poorly-developed palatal projection with the double ridge along its centre. In this respect it resembles Phoenicopterus ruber so closely that it seems reasonable to include it in that genus (Fig. 9A-B). The other fragment is from the anterior end of the lower jaw. It is slender, slightly decurved, and heavily grooved in a manner more similar to that of Phoeniconaias. It tapers more gradually than does the bill of Phoenicopterus ruber in this region and may therefore have been longer and more slender ; it appears less deeply hollowed ventraUy towards the posterior and in comparison with P. ruber the bill may have been shallower in the regi
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