The task follows the Flinders groups extended work on now-extinct megafauna– including the biggest eagle that ever flew in Australia, just recently named Dynatoaetus gaffae, by Dr Mather, Associate Professor Trevor Worthy, Dr. Aaron Camens, and others.
The humerus of the freshly described Dynatoaetus pachyosteus (left) compared to that of the living Wedge-tailed Eagle. Credit: Ellen Mather.
Discovery of New Eagle Species and Australian Vulture.
In their latest paper, Dr. Mather and Associate Professor Worthy join fellow Flinders paleontologists Dr. Diane Fusco, Professor Mike Lee (Flinders and SA Museum), and Dr John Hellstrom (University of Melbourne), in releasing details of the second biggest eagle, aptly called Dynatoaetus pachyosteus, explained specifically from fossil bones found in the Victoria Cave at the Naracoorte Caves.
” This new eagle types, Dynatoaetus pachyosteus, would have been comparable in wingspan to a wedge-tailed eagle, now Australias largest living eagle of prey, but its bones appear a lot more robust– particularly its leg bones, recommending it was even more effective and greatly developed,” says Dr Mather..
” This genus (Dynatoaetus) was endemic to Australia, suggesting it was discovered nowhere else on the planet.
” Now we have found 2 species and understand this genus is not particularly closely related to any eagles outside Australia, we recommend that this group of raptors should have remained in Australia for rather some time, rather than being a relatively recent arrival.”.
” However, our analyses suggest they may be related to the large Crested Serpent Eagle and Philippine Eagle, top predators in the tropical jungles Southeast Asia and New Guinea.”.
Analyses of Vulture and Eagle Species.
The team also first explained the Australian vulture (Cryptogyps lacertosus), a bird the size of a modern-day wedge-tailed eagle from bones consisting of an almost complete pair of wings from a single private formerly recovered from an underwater cavern, called the Green Waterhole or Fossil Cave, near Mount Gambier.
In the newest article, the Flinders University team connected these SA remains to bones they studied from a Nullarbor collapse Western Australia– suggesting Cryptogyps was more a primitive vulture than formerly thought.
The artist John Barrie and paleontologist Dr. Ellen Mather positioning with the painting.Julie Barrie (Flinders University Palaeontology Lab).
The art work of these extinct Australian birds of prey, done by local South Australian artist and natural historian John Barrie, will be placed on screen at the Naracoorte Fossil Centre..
Implications and Findings.
” Most vultures in the Aegypiinae (Old World vultures related to the Griffon Vulture) subfamily have incredibly light wing bones filled with air cavities, thought to assist with long durations of skyrocketing flight,” states Dr Mather. “But Cryptogyps seems to have actually lacked this adaptation.”.
This could suggest that Cryptogyps was not as effective a soarer compared to its living family members..
Both types of Dynatoaetus were discovered in Victoria Fossil Cave deposits therefore lived in the location between 500,000 and 200,000 years earlier.
Eagle fossils are rare, so exactly when these birds went extinct is unknown. Nevertheless, the scientists had the ability to place a date on the fossil vulture from Green Waterhole Cave.
Co-author Dr Hellstrom led uranium-series dating of the calcite rafts (calcite crystals that form on the surface area of still water in caverns) that the fossils were buried in suggesting that Cryptogyps lacertosus lived around 60,000 years ago. This means it had actually survived right up to Australias megafaunal mass termination.
It is rather likely that the extinction of the large marsupials played a crucial function in the death of Cryptogyps, and possibly the giant eagles also, states Dr Mather.
” Whatever triggered the extinction of at least the vulture and 2 other eagles, the result is that Australia has just one largish raptor in its inland animals today. This is uncommon in the world, as most continents have a number of eagles and vultures.
” We now know that extinction not only eliminated big groups from the mammal animals however that absence of vultures is a current loss and that Australia had 2 other eagles– both able to take rather larger victim than the wedge-tailed eagle.”.
Referral: “Pleistocene raptors from cavern deposits of South Australia, with a description of a new species of Dynatoaetus (Accipitridae: Aves): morphology, systematics and palaeoecological ramifications” by Ellen K. Mather, Michael S. Y. Lee, Diana A Fusco, John Hellstrom and Trevor H. Worthy, 2023, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.DOI: 10.1080/ 03115518.2023.2268780.
A flock of Cryptogyps lacertosus ( left) watch on and wait their turn as a number of people of Dynatoaetus pachyosteus (center, right) feed from the carcass of a dead Diprotodon optatum in the Late Pleistocene Naracoorte landscape in southern Australia. Credit: Natural history restoration artist John Barrie (courtesy Flinders University).
A new eagle and vulture have been discovered in fossil deposits.
Australias only vulture, and a terrifying extinct eagle, are amongst the earliest taped birds of victim from the Pleistocene period more than 50,000 years back– and now Flinders University researchers are bringing them to life again..
In addition to brand-new scientific information released in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, a strong brand-new pictorial restoration of a freshly called eagle and the only known Australian vulture will be revealed at the World Heritage-listed Naracoorte Caves in South Australias Limestone Coast this month.
Research on Extinct Megafauna and Birds.
” Imagine these magnificent birds competing for food in landscapes throughout southern Australia ruled by megafauna such as the giant wombat-like Diprotodon optatum and the marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex,” states Dr Ellen Mather, from the Flinders University Palaeontology laboratory..
