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List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki


For a list of early taxa of birds known only from fossils, see List of fossil birds. For birds that have gone extinct since the year 1500, see List of extinct birds.


Prehistoric birds are various taxa of birds that have become extinct before recorded history, or more precisely, before they could be studied alive by ornithologists. They are known from subfossil remains and sometimes folk memory, as in the case of Haast's eagle from New Zealand.

Artist's rendition of a giant Haast's eagle attacking New Zealand moa.

Birds (Aves) are generally believed to have evolved from feathered dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and dinosaurs except that the former survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and the latter did not. For the purposes of this article, a "bird" is considered to be any member of the clade Neornithes, that is the bird lineage as exists today. The other lineages of the Aves also became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

Taxon extinctions taking place before the Late Quaternary happened in the absence of significant human interference. Rather, reasons for extinction are stochastic abiotic events such as bolide impacts, climate changes, mass volcanic eruptions etc. Alternatively, species may have gone extinct due to evolutionary displacement by successor or competitor taxa – it is notable for example that in the early Neogene, seabird biodiversity was much higher than today; this is probably due to competition by the radiation of marine mammals after that time. The relationships of these ancient birds are often hard to determine, as many are known only from very fragmentary remains and due to the complete fossilization precludes analysis of information from DNA, RNA or protein sequencing.

For further discussion, see main article Fossil birds

Late Quaternary avian extinctions[edit]

This page lists bird taxa that have become extinct before they could be researched by science, but nonetheless survived into (geologically) recent times. Their remains are not or not completely fossilized and therefore may yield organic material for molecular analyses to provide additional clues for resolving their taxonomic affiliations. As these species' extinction coincided with the expansion of Homo sapiens across the globe, in most cases, anthropogenic factors have played a crucial part in their extinction, be it through hunting, introduced predators or habitat alteration. It is notable that a large proportion of the species are from oceanic islands, especially in Polynesia. Bird taxa that evolved on oceanic islands are usually very vulnerable to hunting or predation by rats, cats, dogs or pigs – animals commonly introduced by humans – as they evolved in the absence of mammalian predators and therefore only have rudimentary predator avoidance behavior. Many, especially rails, have additionally become flightless for the same reason and thus presented even easier prey.

The taxa in this list became extinct during the Late Quaternary – the Holocene or Late Pleistocene – but before the period of global scientific exploration that started in the late 15th century. More precisely, their extinction was coincident with the expansion of Homo sapiens beyond Africa and Eurasia, i.e. this list basically deals with extinctions between 40000 BC and 1500 AD. They should be classified with the Wikipedia conservation status category "Prehistoric" in their individual accounts.

Taxonomic list of Late Quaternary prehistoric birds[edit]

All of these are Neornithes.

Struthioniformes[edit]

The ostrich and related ratites.

Dromornithidae[edit]

An extinct clade of massive galloansere birds.

Anseriformes[edit]

The group that includes modern ducks and geese.

Pangalliformes[edit]

The group that includes modern chickens and quails.

True Galliformes

Charadriiformes[edit]

Gulls, auks, shorebirds

Gruiformes[edit]

The group that includes modern rails and cranes.

Eurypygiformes[edit]

Ciconiiformes[edit]

Pelecaniformes[edit]

Cathartiformes[edit]

Suliformes[edit]

The group that includes modern boobies and cormorants.

Phoenicopteriformes[edit]

The group that include modern flamingos

Procellariiformes[edit]

The group that includes modern albatrosses, petrels and storm petrels.

Sphenisciformes[edit]

Columbiformes[edit]

Mesitornithiformes[edit]

Psittaciformes[edit]

  • Placement unresolved
    • Psittaciformes gen. et sp. indet. (Rota, Marianas) – cf. Cacatua/Eclectus?
  • Strigopidae – kakas and kakapos
    • Extinct species of extant genera
  • Cacatuidae cockatoos
  • Psittacidae – parrots, parakeets, and lorikeets
    • Extinct species of extant genera
    • Extinct subspecies of an extant species
    • Placement unresolved
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. 1 (Easter Island)
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. 2 (Easter Island)
      • Psittacidae gen. et sp. indet. (Guam, Marianas) – cf. Trichoglossus/Vini?

Cuculiformes[edit]

Accipitriformes[edit]

Birds of prey

Falconiformes[edit]

Caprimulgiformes[edit]

Nightjars and potoos

  • Caprimulgidae – nightjars
    • Extinct species of extant genera
      • Cuban pauraque, Siphonorhis daiquiri (Cuba, West Indies) – possibly extant

Aegotheliformes[edit]

Owlet-nightjars

Apodiformes[edit]

Swifts and hummingbirds.

  • Apodidae – swifts
    • Extinct species of extant genera
      • Mangaia swiftlet, Aerodramus manuoi (Mangaia, Cook Islands) – formerly Collocalia

Bucerotiformes[edit]

Hornbills and relatives. Formerly included in Coraciiformes.

  • Bucerotidae – hornbills
    • Extinct species of extant genera

Piciformes[edit]

Woodpeckers, puffbird and jacamars.

  • Picidae – woodpeckers
    • Extinct species of extant genera
      • Bermuda flicker, Colaptes oceanicus (Bermuda, known from Pleistocene bones, but might have persisted until the Holocene)

Coraciiformes[edit]

Strigiformes[edit]

Owls and barn owls.

Passeriformes[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

General
Citations

External links[edit]

Template:Quaternary Footer


This article "List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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