INVESTIGADORES
NORIEGA Jorge Ignacio
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
A large crested tinamous (Aves, Tinamidae, Eudromia) from the Late Pleistocene of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Autor/es:
NORIEGA, JORGE I.; SOIBELZON, L.; BEILINSON, E.; SOIBELZON, E.; DIEDERLE, JUAN M.
Lugar:
Buenos Aires
Reunión:
Congreso; XXVI Jornadas Argentinas de Paleontología de Vertebrados; 2012
Institución organizadora:
Fundación Félix de Azara-MACN (CONICET)
Resumen:
Tinamous are medium-sized ground birds endemic to the Neotropical region. The first
record of Eudromia corresponds to an indeterminate species from the Miocene of La
Pampa Province, being E. olsoni Tambussi and Tonni, 1985 the only known
paleospecies from the Pliocene of Buenos Aires Province. Several records of the extant
E. elegans Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1832 come from Pleistocene and Holocene localities
of Pampean and Patagonian regions. We report the finding of a large nearly complete
specimen of Eudromia (RMP001) deposited at the Repositorio Paleontológico Marcos
Paz which includes elements of the fore and hindlimbs, girdles, sternum, and a partial
vertebral column. The specimen largely exceeds the size range of living species of the
genus. It was collected at Vignona Quarry (34° 54´ 51´´S, 58° 42´ 28´´W) in Marcos
Paz County from a succession whose lower lithosome is characterized by brown silty
clay. The fossil was found near the top of this facies and is assigned to the Lujanian
Stage/Age due to an absolute date of 60.050 ± 9.840 BP. Because fossil tinamous are
osteologically almost indistinguishable from modern representatives, detailed
comparative and metric analyses will be needed to ascertain the specific status. Crested
tinamous are inhabitants of open and xeric environments with warm temperate to cold
temperate climatic conditions. As the fossil location is more than 250 km east of the
eastern distributional limit of the nearest extant species, this geographical outlier can be
interpreted as indicative of the expansion of Central or Patagonian grasslands during the
IS4.