Brian Marples described Manu antiquus (meaning ‘old bird’) from a single furcula found in Late Oligocene (26-30 million-year-old) marine deposits near Duntroon, North Otago. The bone was associated with penguin bones, and Marples suggested that it resembled the furcula of an albatross. More recent researchers have considered the bone to be dissimilar to extant albatrosses, and that it may belong to a bony-toothed pelican (extinct family Pelagornithidae), but it also differs from the only described pelagornithid furcula. The affinities of Manu antiquus remain uncertain.

The holotype (an incomplete furcula) is in the Otago Museum (OM C.45.7).

References

Marples, B.J. 1946. Notes on some neognathous bird bones from the early Tertiary of New Zealand. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 76: 132-134.

Mayr, G. 2009. Paleogene fossil birds. Heidelberg, Springer.

Mayr, G.; Rubilar-Rogers, D. 2010. Osteology of a new giant bony-toothed bird from the Miocene of Chile, with a revision of the taxonomy of Neogene Pelagornithidae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30: 1313-1330.

Olson, S. L. 1985. The fossil record of birds. Pages 79-238 in Farner, D.S.; King, J.R.; Parkes, K.C. (eds) Avian biology, vol. 8. New York, Academic Press.

Recommended citation

Miskelly, C.M. 2013. Bird of unknown affinities. In Miskelly, C.M. (ed.) New Zealand Birds Online. www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz