THE DYNAMIC EARTH: A BLOG ABOUT GEOLOGY AND THE EARTH SCIENCES

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Eocene Gooney Birds

Out here in Wyoming, the alluvial and lacustrine deposits preserve some pretty nifty trace fossils. While boppin' around the fluvial strata in the basin (which is my focus), I ran across some pretty slick tracks, shown in the picture below.



These bird tracks have been attributed what was most-likely an extremely goofy looking Eocene bird, Presbyornis. I know, it might seem to be a little harsh to just summarily judge some poor extinct critter as silly lookin', but come on! Here's a life reconstruction of the goofy guy, (picture seized from here):


Presbyornis looks like a flamingo, and probably lived like a flamingo, but was actually a member of the Order Anseriformes, making it more closely related to a duck. Paleo-folks reckon it dabbled in the shallow, saline lakes in the western U.S., eating up brine shrimp and probably getting giggled at by all the other birds in the area.

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