Tasidyptes hunteri Van Tets and O’Connor, 1983

Park, Travis & Fitzgerald, Erich M. G., 2012, A review of Australian fossil penguins (Aves: Sphenisciformes), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 69, pp. 309-325 : 320

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.24199/j.mmv.2012.69.06

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12212436

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03CEBC7D-FFBD-5A7C-8D26-C48EFBB1F8DD

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Tasidyptes hunteri Van Tets and O’Connor, 1983
status

 

Tasidyptes hunteri Van Tets and O’Connor, 1983

Holotype. Pelvis in three parts ( ANWC BS2670 About ANWC ) ( Table 2).

Type locality. Stockyard Site, Hunter Island , 5 km north of Tasmania (40°32'S, 144°45'E) GoogleMaps .

Horizon and age. Material found in an aboriginal midden. Carbon dating resulted in an age of 760 ± 70 ybp (Holocene).

Referred material. The paratype specimen is a left tarsometatarsus ( ANWC BS2668 About ANWC ) . Also referred to the species are a juvenile synsacrum ( ANWC BS2667 About ANWC ) and a left coracoid ( ANWC BS2669 About ANWC ) . ( Table 2)

Diagnosis. Differs from Eudyptula and Megadyptes by having: a caudal part of the synsacrum with relatively broader fused vertebrae and long slender lateral processes; and the lateral foramen vasculare proximale situated more distal than the medial foramen vasculare proximale on the plantar surface of the tarsometatarsus. However, this character is not clear from the figure in Van Tets and O’Connor (1983: Fig. 4 View Figure 4 ).

Remarks. This taxon is no longer considered valid due to the fragmentary nature of the fossils, the fact that the coracoid and tarsometatarsus are indistinguishable from Eudyptes and the fact that the four specimens come from three different stratigraphic layers of the midden ( Van Tets and O’Connor, 1983; Fordyce and Jones, 1990; Ksepka and Clarke, 2010). However, Ksepka and Clarke (2010) note that due to the young age of the specimens, DNA testing to confirm their identity may well be possible. Ksepka and Ando (2011: 178) also draw attention to the synsacrum stating that the long slender lateral processes may be “a possible diagnostic character, certainly in need of quantitative evaluation”.

ANWC

Australian National Wildlife Collection

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Sphenisciformes

Family

Spheniscidae

Genus

Tasidyptes

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