Pinpanettais another recently described genus of bird, specifically from Australia - the Etadunna Formation, the Namba Formation, and Riversleigh, ranging from South Australia to Queensland. It lived from about 26 to 24 million years ago, in the Chattian age of the Oligocene of the Paleogene. This means they were a very common feature during this distinctive time in Australia’s history, when a lot of modern groups are found (as well as some of the origins of modern passerines). A group of stiff-tailed ducks, Pinpanettahad distinctive grooves on their wings that created shallow or no notches for muscle attachment on one point, as well as other subtle skeletal differences. These birds were closely related to modern stiff-tailed ducks, indicating their early radiation. They were probably well adapted to diving, due to convergent evolution with modern diving ducks, and show a very early point at which diving behavior had evolved in ducks. The three species mainly differ based on where they are from, as well as some subtle skeletal differences.
Source:
Worthy, T. 2009. Descriptions and phylogenetic relationships of two new genera and four new species of Oligo-Miocene waterfowl (Aves: Anatidae) from Australia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 156: 411 - 454.
THE WINNER OF TRIASSIC MARCH MADNESS IS: POSTOSUCHUS!
In a result that surprises absolutely no one, Postosuchusis the winner of our final round in this year’s March Madness competition!
We had a record-breaking Five Hundred and Thirteen Votes, broken down as such below:
I assigned each first place vote a value of 4, each second place vote a value of 3, each third place vote a value of 2, and each fourth place vote a value of 1, and then added it up for each species as so:
Which lead to Postosuchus being in first place, followed closely by Nothosaurus, then a larger gap to Drepanosaurus, and with Shonisaurus in last place. What’s kind of hilarious is since around 150 votes or so, Nothosaurus has alwaysbeen less than ten points behind Postosuchus - and it never managed to surpass it, not after five hundred votes! The appeal of the CrocoPup cannot be denied!
What a wonderful and harrowing competition this year everyone!!!!! Thank you all for playing - and I hope we all had fun learning about the weird and wacky animals of the Triassic Period!!!!!!!! Stay safe and Stay Healthy!
Totally forgot to upload this here like a month ago, but with Prehistoric Planet now out in it’s entirety, I figured I would catch-up. Here is the father T. rexfromPrehistoric Planet (known to some as “Hank”) hanging out with some other Rex dads/families across paleomedia. See if you can name all the references!
Side note: Please watch Prehistoric Planet if you get a chance. It’s a refreshing look at dinos, it’s gorgeous, and you can watch it with an Apple+ free trial. I am in love with it.
