Eogruidae

Eogruidae
Temporal range: Late Eocene–Early Pliocene
Detailed depiction of Ergilornis in its habitat
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Infraclass: Palaeognathae
Order: Struthioniformes
Family: †Eogruidae
Wetmore, 1934
Genera

Eogruidae (also spelled Eogruiidae in some publications) is a family of large, flightless birds that inhabited Asia from the Eocene to Pliocene epochs. Related to modern ostriches, it was formerly thought to be related to cranes, limpkins and trumpeters and that the similarities with ostriches were due to similar speciations to cursoriality, with both groups showing reduced numbers of toes to two in some taxa.[1][2][3] It has been suggested that competition from true ostriches has caused the extinction of these birds,[2][3] though this has never been formally tested and several ostrich taxa do occur in the late Cenozoic of Asia[4] and some species do occur in areas where ostrich fossils have also been found.[1] It has been suggested that the family is paraphyletic, with Ergilornithidae more closely related to modern ostriches than to Eogrus or Sonogrus.[5]

  1. ^ a b Zelenkov, Nikita; Boev, Zlatozar; Lazaridis, Georgios (2016). "A large ergilornithine (Aves, Gruiformes) from the Late Miocene of the Balkan Peninsula". Paläontologische Zeitschrift. 90 (1): 145–151. Bibcode:2016PalZ...90..145Z. doi:10.1007/s12542-015-0279-z. S2CID 131264199.
  2. ^ a b Kurochkin, E.N. 1976. A survey of the Paleogene birds of Asia. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 27:75-86.
  3. ^ a b Kurochkin, E.N. 1981. New representatives and evolution of two archaic gruiform families in Eurasia. Transactions of the Soviet-Mongolian Paleontologial Expedition 15:59-85.
  4. ^ Mayr, G. (2009). Paleogene fossil birds. Springer.
  5. ^ Mayr, Gerald; Zelenkov, Nikita (2021-11-13). "Extinct crane-like birds (Eogruidae and Ergilornithidae) from the Cenozoic of Central Asia are indeed ostrich precursors". Ornithology. 138 (4): ukab048. doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukab048. ISSN 0004-8038.