New penguin remains from the Pliocene of Northern Chile

The Basal Penguin (Aves: Sphenisciformes) Perudyptes devriesi and a Phylogenetic Evaluation of the Penguin Fossil Record

“…Relationships among the three extant Rockhopper Penguin groups recently recognized as species agree with those reported by Banks et al (2006) (Walsh and Suá rez, 2006). Spheniscus muizoni has not been previously included in a phylogenetic analysis, although Gö hlich (2007) listed characters supporting the assignment of this fossil to the genus Spheniscus.…”

“…Exclusion of synapomorphies grouping Megadyptes and Eudyptes (e.g., shelf of bone bounding the salt gland fossa, yellow crown feathers) and supporting the monophyly of extant Pygoscelis (e.g., fusion of the synsacrum and ilium) appears to account for the failure to recover these clades. We consider the monophyly of all extant Pygoscelis species and the monophyly of the clade uniting Megadyptes and Eudyptes to the exclusion of all other extant penguins to be well supported based on the strong molecular support for these clades reported by Baker et al (2006), morphological support reported by others (Giannini and Bertelli, 2004;Bertelli and Giannini, 2005;Walsh and Suá rez, 2006), and the results of the analyses presented in this paper.…”

“…However, because this fossil is placed in a polytomy including extant Pygoscelis and a large clade of non-Pygoscelis taxa, the monophyly of Pygoscelis grandis plus extant Pygoscelis species could not be confirmed. In their original description of Pygoscelis grandis, Walsh and Suá rez (2006) found this species to be the sister taxon of a clade uniting the three extant Pygoscelis species ( fig. 13).…”

First bird remains from the Eocene of Algarrobo, central Chile

“…The establishment of the Antarctic circumpolar current during the Late Eocene probably as a consequence of the Drake Passage nearly 41 Ma (Scher and Martin, 2006), and the later beginning of the Humboldt Current during the Miocene, provided new and more stable environmental conditions that favoured closer ecologic affinities between marine vertebrates along the Pacific in lower latitudes. This suggests a partial hypothesis of why spheniscid species in Chile and Perú had closer affinities during the Neogene rather than during the Paleogene, being represented by several common species, but retaining the presence of the circumpolar, extant genus Pygoscelis in northern Chile as a remarkable difference (Acosta Hospitaleche et al, 2006;Walsh and Suárez, 2006;Sallaberry et al, 2008). This record could probably indicate that a biogeographical barrier existed during the Eocene in the Pacific coast of South America, suggesting that Eocene penguins from Peru have a vicariant origin.…”

“…The fossil record of birds from Chile is especially well-represented during the Neogene, with finds recovered from levels of the La Portada Formation (Ferraris and Di Biase, 1978), Bahía Inglesa Formation (Rojo, 1985 emmended by Marquardt et al, 2000) and Coquimbo Formation (Moscoso et al, 1982), in the northern area of the country (e.g., Walsh and Hume, 2001;Emslie and Guerra Correa, 2003;Acosta Hospitaleche et al, 2006;Walsh and Suárez, 2006;Sallaberry et al, 2007;Mayr and Rubilar-Rogers, 2010), being mostly comprised by marine taxa (Chávez, 2007). The fossil record of continental birds is restricted to Meganhiga chilensis, Alvarenga (1995) from Miocene levels correlated with Curamallín Formation (Niemeyer and Muñoz, 1983) in Lonquimay, south-central Chile and an isolated tarsometatarsus of Milvago sp.…”