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Citation for Study 13008

About Citation title: "A gigantic bird from the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia.".
About Study name: "A gigantic bird from the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia.".
About This study is part of submission 13008 (Status: Published).

Citation

Naish D., Dyke G., Cau A., & Escuilli? F. 2012. A gigantic bird from the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia. Biology Letters, 8(1): 97-100.

Authors

  • Naish D.
  • Dyke G.
  • Cau A.
  • Escuilli? F.

Abstract

We describe an enormous Late Cretaceous fossil bird from Kazakhstan, known from a pair of edentulous mandibular rami (greater than 275 mm long), which adds significantly to our knowledge of Mesozoic avian morphological and ecological diversity. A suite of autapomorphies lead us to recognize the specimen as a new taxon. Phylogenetic analysis resolves this giant bird deep within Aves as a basal member of Ornithuromorpha. This Kazakh fossil demonstrates that large body size evolved at least once outside modern birds (Neornithes) and reveals hitherto unexpected trophic diversity within Cretaceous Aves.

Keywords

Aves; Kazakhstan; Neornithes; anatomy; phylogeny

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About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S13008
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