A gigantic bird from the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia

Biology Letters

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 97-100

  Naish, Darren ^a   Dyke, Gareth ^b   Cau, Andrea ^c   Escuillié, François ^d   Godefroit, Pascal ^e  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

^c Museo Geologico e Paleontologico Giovanni Capellini   (Italy)

^d Eldonia   (France)

^e ROYAL BELGIAN INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES   (Belgium)

Author keywords

Anatomy; Aves; Kazakhstan; Neornithes; Phylogeny

Indexed keywords

ANATOMY; BIRD; BODY SIZE; BONE; CRETACEOUS; FOSSIL RECORD; MORPHOLOGY; NEW TAXON; PALEOECOLOGY; PHYLOGENY; SPECIES DIVERSITY; TAXONOMY; TROPHIC STRUCTURE;

CENTRAL ASIA;

AVES; NEORNITHES;

EID: 84856269720     PISSN: 17449561     EISSN: 1744957X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0683     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Blackburn, T. M. & Gaston, K. J. 1994 The distribution of body sizes of the world's bird species. Oikos 70, 127-130. (doi:10.2307/3545707)
2. Dunning, J. B. 1983 CRC handbook of avian body masses. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
3. Hone, D. W. E., Dyke, G. J., Haden, M. & Benton, M. J. 2008 Body size evolution in Mesozoic birds. J. Evol. Biol. 21, 618-624. (doi:10.1111/j.1420- 9101.2007.01483.x)
4. Buffetaut, E., Loeuff, J. L., Mechin, P. & Mechin-Salessy, A. 1995 A large French Cretaceous bird. Nature 377, 110. (doi:10.1038/377110a0)
5. Mayr, G. 2009 Paleogene fossil birds. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
6. Buffetaut, E. & Le Loeuff, J. L. 2011 Gargantuavis philoinos: giant bird or giant pterosaur? Annales de Paléontologie 96, 135-141. (doi:10.1016/j.annpal.2011.05.002)
7. Malakhov, D. V., Dyke, G. J. & King, C. 2009 Remote sensing applied to palaeontology: exploration of Upper Cretaceous sediments in Kazakhstan for potential fossil sites. Palaeont. Elect. 12, 1-10.
8. Dyke, G. J. & Malakhov, D. V. 2004 Abundance and taphonomy of dinosaur teeth and other vertebrate remains from the Bostobynskaya formation, Northeastern Aral Sea region, Republic of Kazakhstan. Cretaceous Res. 25, 669-674. (doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2004.06.004)
9. Chiappe, L. M. & Witmer, L. M. (eds) 2002 Mesozoic birds: above the heads of dinosaurs. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
10. O'Connor, J., Chiappe, L. M. & Bell, A. 2011 Premodern birds: avian divergences in the Mesozoic. In Living dinosaurs: the evolutionary history of modern birds (eds G. J. Dyke & G. Kaiser), pp. 39-114. London: Wiley Blackwell.
11. Nesbitt, S. J., Smith, N. D., Irmis, R. B., Turner, A. H., Downs, A. & Norell, M. A. 2009 A complete skeleton of a Late Triassic saurischian and the early evolution of dinosaurs. Science 326, 1530-1533. (doi:10.1126/science. 1180350)
12. Goloboff, P. A., Farris, S. & Nixon, K. C. 2008 TNT, a free program for phylogenetic analysis. Cladistics 24, 774-786. (doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031. 2008.00217.x)
13. Holtz, T. R. J., Molnar, R. E. & Currie, P. J. 2004 Basal Tetanurae. In The Dinosauria (eds D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson & H. Osmolska), 2nd edn, pp. 71-110. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
14. Rauhut, O. W. M. 2003 The interrelationships and evolution of basal theropod dinosaurs. Spec. Pap. Palaeont. 69, 1-213.
15. Benson, R. B. J., Carrano, M. T. & Brusatte, S. L. 2010 A new clade of archaic large-bodied predatory dinosaurs (Theropoda: Allosauroidea) that survived to the latest Mesozoic. Naturwissenschaften 97, 71-78. (doi:10.1007/s00114-009-0614-x)
16. Choiniere, J. N., Clark, J. M., Forster, C. A. & Xu, X. 2010 A basal coelurosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) of the Shishugou Formation in Wucaiwan, People's Republic of China. J. Vert. Paleontol. 30, 1773-1796. (doi:10.1080/027246 34.2010.520779)
17. Senter, P. 2007 A new look at the phylogeny of Coelurosauria (Dinosauria: Theropoda). J. Syst. Palaeont. 5, 429-463. (doi:10.1017/S1477201907002143)
18. Turner, A. H., Pol, D., Clarke, J. A., Erickson, G. M. & Norell, M. A. 2007 A basal dromaeosaurid and size evolution preceding avian flight. Science 317, 1378-1381. (doi:10.1126/science.1144066)
19. Currie, P. J., Godfrey, S. J. & Nessov, L. 1993 New caenagnathid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of North America and Asia. Can. J. Earth Sci. 30, 2255-2272. (doi:10.1139/e93-196)
20. Zanno, L. E., Gillette, D. D., Albright, L. B. & Titus, A. L. 2009 A new North American therizinosaurid and the role of herbivory in 'predatory' dinosaur evolution. Proc. R. Soc. B 276, 3505-3511. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1029)
21. Clarke, J. A. 2004 Morphology, phylogenetic taxonomy, and systematics of Ichthyornis and Apatornis (Avialae: Ornithurae). Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 286, 1-179. (doi:10.1206/0003-0090(2004)286,0001:MPTASO.2.0.CO;2)
22. Nessov, L. A. 1992 Mesozoic and Paleogene birds of the USSR. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co 36, 465-478.
23. Dyke, G. J., Malakhov, D. V. & Chiappe, L. M. 2006 A re-analysis of the marine bird Asiahesperornis from northern Kazakhstan. Cret. Res. 27, 947-953. (doi:10. 1016/j.cretres.2006.05.001)
24. Fountaine, T. M. R., Benton, M. J., Dyke, G. J. & Nudds, R. L. 2005 The quality of the fossil record of Mesozoic birds. Proc. R. Soc. B 272, 289-294. (doi:10. 1098/rspb.2004.2923)
25. Cooper, A. & Fortey, R. A. 1998 Evolutionary explosions and the phylogenetic fuse. Trends Ecol. Evol. 13, 151-156. (doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(97) 01277-9)
26. Butler, R. J. & Goswami, A. 2008 Body size evolution in Mesozoic birds: little evidence for Cope's rule. J. Evol. Biol. 21, 1673-1682. (doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01594.x)