Date: 4/29/24 12:57 am From: 'Brochu, Christopher A' via IA-BIRD <ia-bird...> Subject: [ia-bird] sighting, sort of, but not in Iowa and not a living bird
Thought y'all would get a kick out of this.
I've been in Australia for the past couple of weeks. The primary reason was a conference in Darwin and research at a museum in Alice Springs, though I've certainly been birding.
The attached photo shows the thigh bones (femora) of two flightless birds. On the right is the femur of a modern emu. On the left is the femur of Dromornis stirtoni, an extinct bird from the Miocene at a site called Alcoota.
(I don't know the precise age off hand, but it's mid-Miocene, which would put it between around 10 to 15 million years in age.)
Believe it or not, Dromornis is not a ratite. In fact, it appears to have been an anseriform of some sort.
Christopher A. Brochu Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 USA <chris-brochu...>
