New Miocene Fossils and the History of Penguins in Australia
| Autor: | Stephen J. Gallagher, Travis Park, Erich M. G. Fitzgerald, Tony Allan, Ellyn Tomkins |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Spheniscidae lcsh:Medicine 01 natural sciences Geographical Locations Medicine and Health Sciences lcsh:Science Musculoskeletal System Phylogeny Data Management Multidisciplinary Fossils Ecology Geology Phylogenetic Analysis Miocene Epoch Seabirds Phylogenetics Vertebrates Anatomy Cenozoic Research Article Computer and Information Sciences 010506 paleontology Biogeography Oceania Context (language use) Penguins Biology Research and Analysis Methods 010603 evolutionary biology Birds Paleontology Animals Evolutionary Systematics Molecular Biology Techniques Molecular Biology Paleozoology Southern Hemisphere Skeleton Taxonomy 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Evolutionary Biology Molecular Biology Assays and Analysis Techniques Eudyptula minor lcsh:R Australia Organisms Biology and Life Sciences Geologic Time Humerus biology.organism_classification Neogene Period Amniotes People and Places Earth Sciences Cenozoic Era Biological dispersal lcsh:Q Paleobiology |
| Zdroj: | PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 4, p e0153915 (2016) PLoS ONE |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0153915 |
| Popis: | Australia has a fossil record of penguins reaching back to the Eocene, yet today is inhabited by just one breeding species, the little penguin Eudyptula minor. The description of recently collected penguin fossils from the re-dated upper Miocene Port Campbell Limestone of Portland (Victoria), in addition to reanalysis of previously described material, has allowed the Cenozoic history of penguins in Australia to be placed into a global context for the first time. Australian pre-Quaternary fossil penguins represent stem taxa phylogenetically disparate from each other and E. minor, implying multiple dispersals and extinctions. Late Eocene penguins from Australia are closest to contemporaneous taxa in Antarctica, New Zealand and South America. Given current material, the Miocene Australian fossil penguin fauna is apparently unique in harbouring ‘giant penguins’ after they went extinct elsewhere; and including stem taxa until at least 6 Ma, by which time crown penguins dominated elsewhere in the southern hemisphere. Separation of Australia from Antarctica during the Palaeogene, and its subsequent drift north, appears to have been a major event in Australian penguin biogeography. Increasing isolation through the Cenozoic may have limited penguin dispersal to Australia from outside the Australasian region, until intensification of the eastwards-flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the mid-Miocene established a potential new dispersal vector to Australia. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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