Late_Quaternary_prehistoric_birds

List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species

Extinct bird species

Late Quaternary prehistoric birds are avian taxa that became extinct during the Late Quaternary – the Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene – and before recorded history, specifically before they could be studied alive by ornithological science. They had died out before the period of global scientific exploration that started in the late 15th century. In other words, this list deals with avian extinctions between 40,000 BC and AD 1500. For the purposes of this article, a "bird" is any member of the clade Neornithes, that is, any descendant of the most recent common ancestor of all currently living birds.

The birds are known from their remains, which are subfossil; as the remains are not completely fossilized, they may yield organic material for molecular analyses to provide additional clues for resolving their taxonomic affiliations. Some birds are also known from folk memory, as in the case of Haast's eagle in New Zealand.

The extinction of the taxa in this list was coincident with the expansion of Homo sapiens beyond Africa and Eurasia, and in most cases, anthropogenic factors 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, dogs, cats or pigs (animals commonly introduced by humans) as they evolved in the absence of mammalian predators, and therefore have only rudimentary predator avoidance behavior. Many, especially rails, have additionally become flightless for the same reason and thus present even easier prey.

Taxon extinctions taking place before the Late Quaternary happened in the absence of significant human interference. Rather, reasons for extinction are random abiotic events such as bolide impacts, climate changes, mass volcanic eruptions, etc. Alternatively, species may have become 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 complete fossilization precludes analysis of information from DNA, RNA or protein sequencing.

Extinct bird species differed from extant birds by being larger, mostly restricted to islands, and often flightless. These factors made them especially vulnerable to human prosecution and to other anthropogenically related declines.^[1]

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Late_Quaternary_prehistoric_birds

Taxonomic list of Late Quaternary prehistoric birds

Paleognathes

Struthioniformes

†Aepyornithiformes

†Dinornithiformes

†Gastornithiformes

Anseriformes

Pangalliformes

Charadriiformes

Charadrii

Scolopaci

Lari

Gruiformes

Eurypygiformes

Procellariiformes

Sphenisciformes

Ciconiiformes

Suliformes

Pelecaniformes

Cathartiformes

Phoenicopteriformes

Mesitornithiformes

Columbiformes

Cuculiformes

Accipitriformes

Caprimulgiformes

Aegotheliformes

Apodiformes

Bucerotiformes

Piciformes

Coraciiformes

Strigiformes

Falconiformes

Psittaciformes

Passeriformes

See also

References

Citations

General

External links

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