Mycteria Linnaeus, 1758

Nascimento, Rafael S. & Silveira, Luís Fábio, 2024, Fossil and subfossil birds of Brazil, Zoologia (e 23079) 41, pp. 1-234 : 137

Mycteria Linnaeus

445. Mycteria cf. americana Linnaeus

Late Pleistocene – RS

Ciconiidae indet. – Ribeiro et al. 1995: 107.

“ave da família Coconiidae ” [sic] – Oliveira et al. 1997: 75.

cf. Ciconia sp. – Oliveira 1999: 67.

Ciconiformes [sic] – Hsiou 2006: 65.

“ Ciconiiformes indeterminado” – Hsiou 2007: 23. Ciconiiformes indet. – Kerber and Oliveira 2008a: 50, 62. Mycteria cf. M. americana – Hsiou 2009a: 145–146, fig. 4.

“ave ciconiforme” – Hsiou 2009b: 335–337, figs 15–16. Mycteria cf. M. americana – Kerber et al. 2011: 204.

Mycteria cf. M. americana – Kerber et al. 2014: 254.

Ciconiidae – Lopes and Pereira 2017: 96.

cf. Mycteria americana – Lopes et al. 2019: 200.

Ribeiro et al. (1995) reported this first late Pleistocene avian record for Rio Grande do Sul. It consists of a fragment of tarsometatarsus (MCN-PV 1845) lacking the proximal end found in the Barranca Grande locality of the Touro Passo Formation in Uruguaiana ( Kerber and Oliveira 2008a).

The fragment was first determined as close to the ciconiids by Ribeiro et al. (1995) and attributed to cf. Ciconia sp. by Oliveira (1999). According to Hsiou (2007, 2009a), it is quite similar to Mycteria americana , but, due to the poor state of conservation and the absence of more skeleton elements for comparison, a definitive determination was not possible.

In the same Formation, several species of mammals were also found, including large ones, and reptiles, fishes, mollusks, and phytoliths ( Kerber and Oliveira 2008 a, Kerber et al. 2011, 2014).

446. Mycteria americana Linnaeus

Late Holocene – SP?/ PR?

Mycteria americana – Emperaire and Laming 1956: 149.

Emperaire and Laming (1956), while describing sambaquis from the southern coast of Brazil (São Paulo and

Paraná), mentioned this species among rare avian remains from the shell levels.

Suliformes Sharpe Fregatidae Degland & Gerbe

447. Fregatidae indet. Holocene – PE

“Frigatebirds” – Olson 1981: 483.

Fregatidae – Alvarenga 1992: 254.

Fregata [in part?] – Carleton and Olson 1999: 8.

Olson (1981) reported well-mineralized seabird bones as frequent during the 1973 collection on the dunes of the Santo Antônio peninsula in Fernando de Noronha. The proximal end of a humerus appears to belong to a small species the size of Fregata ariel , which in the Atlantic Ocean is now found only on Trindade Island, although Olson (1975) reported subfossils of similar size from Saint Helena Island. A fragmented bone from the indurated sandstone caves east of the dunes was also reported by Carleton and Olson (1999). Olson (personal communication, 2016) further noted that the frigate and booby (see Sulidae indet.) material is mostly very fragmentary, and much of it may not be identifiable beyond the genus.