. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. PLIOCENE MOUSEBIRDS FROM OLDUVAI GORGE 209. Fig. 8. Result of co-variance biplot analysis based on mensural data of the ulnae of eight species of fossil and living mousebirds. 1 = Colius striatus (n = 52); 2 = C. colius; (n = 18); 3 = C. leucoce- phalus (n = 1); 4 = Colius cf. C. striatus (n = 2); 5 = Urocolius macrourus (n = 6); 6 = U. indicus fn = 33); 7 = Colius hendeyi (n = 4); 8 — Urocolius sp. (n = 1). A = maximum proximal width (MPW); B = maximum distal width (MDW); C = minimum shaft width (MS
. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. PLIOCENE MOUSEBIRDS FROM OLDUVAI GORGE 209. Fig. 8. Result of co-variance biplot analysis based on mensural data of the ulnae of eight species of fossil and living mousebirds. 1 = Colius striatus (n = 52); 2 = C. colius; (n = 18); 3 = C. leucoce- phalus (n = 1); 4 = Colius cf. C. striatus (n = 2); 5 = Urocolius macrourus (n = 6); 6 = U. indicus fn = 33); 7 = Colius hendeyi (n = 4); 8 — Urocolius sp. (n = 1). A = maximum proximal width (MPW); B = maximum distal width (MDW); C = minimum shaft width (MSW). material from Europe, examined by Ballmann (pers. comm.), may belong to the genus Urocolius. How the living and the fossil species are related to each other is not understood. This, and the fact that only skeletal material can be studied, precludes a more definitive statement other than that the Olduvai species Colius cf. C. striatus might be ancestral to the living Colius striatus. More fossil material of the other Olduvai species, Urocolius sp., would probably help to clarify its taxonomic status. Some of the remaining questions therefore pertain to the phylogenetics of the Colii- formes, when and why they became restricted to Africa, and what limits their present distribution. The five extant species of mousebirds studied in this report show that there is some overlap in terms of size but, generally, Colius striatus has the largest and most robust skeleton of that genus. The wing, tarsus and weight measurements given in Fry et al. (1988) suggest, however, that, of the four living species of Colius, the skeleton of C. castanotus should, in fact, be the most robust. Because of a lack of comparative specimens of this species, it was not possible to confirm this. In the genus Urocolius, the skeleton of the red-faced mousebird, U. indicus, tends to be more robust than that of the blue-naped mousebird, U. macrourus. A comparison between the measure- ments given in Rich &
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