Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T01:07:13.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fossil feathers from the Hawaiian flightless ibis (Apteribis sp.): plumage coloration and systematics of a prehistorically extinct bird

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Carla J. Dove  and
Storrs L. Olson
Carla J. Dove
Affiliation:
Division of Birds, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC, 20013-7012, USA, ,
Storrs L. Olson
Affiliation:
Division of Birds, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC, 20013-7012, USA, ,
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A nearly complete skeleton of an adult Hawaiian flightless ibis (Apteribis sp.) was recovered from a vaulted dry lava tube in association with remains of contour feathers. This is the first documentation of the genus Apteribis from the island of Lanai and provides the only record of the nature of the plumage in any of the prehistorically extinct species of birds known from the Hawaiian Islands. Light and scanning electron microscope analyses of structure of the pennaceous and plumulaceous (downy) portions of these feathers confirmed their placement with the ibises (Threskiornithidae). Within that family, the microscopic structure of the downy feathers is most similar to that of the New World ibises of the genus Eudocimus, thus corroborating molecular evidence of the derivation of Apteribis from Eudocimus. Plumage color was a combination of brown-black and ivory-beige/light brown suggestive of that of juveniles of Eudocimus. Plumage coloration in Apteribis may thus have evolved through the same processes of paedomorphosis that gave rise to flightlessness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , September 2011 , pp. 892 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bennike, O. and Dyck, J. 1986. A subfossil Lapland bunting Calcarius lapponicus feather from Vølvedal, North Greenland. Ornis Scandinavica, 17: 75–77.Google Scholar
Brom, T. G. 1991. The Diagnostic and Phylogenetic Significance of Feather Structures. Amsterdam: Instituut voor Taxonomische Zoologische, Amsterdam, 279 p.Google Scholar
Burney, D. A., James, H. F., Burney, L. P., Olson, S. L., Kikuchi, W., Wagner, W. L., Burney, M., McClosky, M., Kikuchi, D. V., Grady, F. V., Gage, R. II, Nishek, R. 2001. Fossil evidence for a diverse biota from Kaua'i and its transformation since human arrival. Ecological Monographs, 71: 615–641.Google Scholar
Chandler, A. C. 1916. A study of feathers, with reference to their taxonomic significance. University of California Publications in Zoology, 13: 243–446.Google Scholar
Dove, C. J. 1997. Quantification of microscopic feather characters used in the identification of North American Plovers. Condor, 99: 47–57.Google Scholar
Dove, C. J. 1998. Feather evidence helps clarify locality of anthropological artifacts in the Museum of Mankind. Pacific Studies, 21: 73–85.Google Scholar
Dove, C. J. 2000. A descriptive and phylogenetic analysis of plumulaceous feather characters in Charadriiformes. Ornithological Monographs, 51: 1–163.Google Scholar
Feduccia, J. A. 1999. The origin and evolution of birds, 2nd edition. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 466 p.Google Scholar
Fleischer, R. C. and McIntosh, C. E. 2001. Molecular systematics and biogeography of the Hawaiian Avifauna. Studies in Avian Biology, 22: 51–60.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1969. An evolutionary microcosm: Pleistocene and recent history of the land snail P. (Poecilozonites) in Bermuda. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 138: 407–532.Google Scholar
Humphrey, P. S., Pefaur, J. E., and Rasmussen, P. C. 1993. Avifauna of three Holocene cave deposits in southern Chile. Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Kansas, 154: 1–37.Google Scholar
James, H. F. and Burney, D. A. 1997. The diet and ecology of Hawaii's extinct flightless waterfowl: evidence from coprolites. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 62: 279–297.Google Scholar
James, H. F. and Olson, S. L. 1983. Flightless birds. Natural History, 92: 30–40.Google Scholar
James, H. F. and Olson, S. L. 1991. Descriptions of thirty-two new species of birds from the Hawaiian Islands. Part II. Passeriformes. Ornithological Monographs, 46: 1–88.Google Scholar
Kushlan, J. A. and Bildstein, K. L. 1992. White Ibis Eudocimus albus, p. 1–20. In Poole, A. (ed.), The Birds of North America, Vol. 9. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca.Google Scholar
Laybourne, R. C., Sabo, B. A., and Morningstar, A. 1992. Basic technique for preparation of down for examination with the scanning electron microscope. Auk, 109: 195–197.Google Scholar
Laybourne, R. C., Deedrick, D., and Huber, F. 1994. Feather in amber is earliest new world fossil of Picidae. Wilson Bulletin, 106: 18–25.Google Scholar
McNab, B. K. and Ellis, H. I. 2006. Flightless rails endemic to islands have lower energy expenditures and clutch sizes than flighted rails on islands and continents. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A, 145: 295–311.Google Scholar
Milberg, P. and Tyrberg, T. 1993. Naïve birds and noble savages—a review of man-caused prehistoric extinctions of island birds. Ecography, 16: 229–250.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. 1973. Evolution of the rails of the South Atlantic Islands (Aves: Rallidae). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 152: 1–53.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. 1983. Lessons from a flightless ibis. Natural History, 92: 40.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. and James, H. F. 1982. Fossil birds from the Hawaiian Islands: evidence for wholesale extinction by man before Western contact. Science, 217: 633–635.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olson, S. L. and James, H. F. 1991. Descriptions of thirty-two new species of birds from the Hawaiian Islands. Part I. Non-Passeriformes. Ornithological Monographs, 45: 1–88.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. and Matsuoka, H. 2005. New specimens of the early Eocene frigate bird Limnofregata (Pelecaniformes: Fregatidae), with the description of a new species. Zootaxa, 1046: 1–15.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. and Steadman, D. W. 1977. A new genus of flightless ibis (Threskiornithidae) and other fossil birds from cave deposits in Jamaica. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 90: 447–457.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. and Steadman, D. W. 1979. The humerus of Xenicibis, the extinct flightless ibis of Jamaica. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 92: 23–27.Google Scholar
Olson, S. L. and Wetmore, A. 1976. Preliminary diagnoses of two extraordinary new genera of birds from Pleistocene deposits in the Hawaiian Islands. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 89: 247–258.Google Scholar
Pyle, R. L. and Pyle, P. 2009. The birds of the Hawaiian Islands: occurrence, history, distribution, and status. B. P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A. Version 1, 31 December 2009.Google Scholar
Ramo, C. and Busto, B. 1987. Hybridization between the Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) and the White Ibis (Eudocimus albus) in Venezuela. Colonial Waterbirds, 10: 111–114.Google Scholar
Reaney, B. A., Richner, S. M., and Cunninham, W. P. 1978. A preliminary scanning electron microscope study of the minute morphological features of feathers and their taxonomic significance. Scanning Electron Microscopy, 1: 471–478.Google Scholar
Sabo, B. A. and Laybourne, R. C. 1994. Preparation of avian material recovered from pellets and as prey remains. Journal of Raptor Research, 8: 192–193.Google Scholar
Schorger, A. W. 1961. An ancient Pueblo turkey. Auk, 78: 138–144.Google Scholar
Steadman, D. W. 1988. Vertebrates from the late Quaternary Hiscock site, Genesee County, New York. In Laub, R. S., Miller, N. G., Steadman, D. W. (eds.), Late Pleistocene and early Holocene paleoecology and archeology of the eastern Great Lake region. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 33: 95–113.Google Scholar
Steadman, D. W. 2006. Extinction and biogeography of tropical Pacific birds. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 594 p.Google Scholar
White, W. B. 2010. Secondary minerals in volcanic caves: data from Hawai'i. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 72: 75–85.Google Scholar