Cuban flightless crane
The Cuban flightless crane (Antigone cubensis[1], syn: Grus cubensis) is a large, extinct species of crane that was endemic to the island of Cuba in the Caribbean. The remains were found in Pleistocene deposits in Pinar del Rio. Probably derived from an early invasion of sandhill cranes from North America, it differed from that species by, as well as larger size, having a proportionately broader bill, stockier legs, and with reduced wings and pectoral girdle indicating that it may have been flightless.[2] Currently, the only extant Caribbean crane is the Cuban sandhill crane, Antigone canadensis nesiotes, an endangered subspecies of sandhill crane endemic to the country.
| Cuban flightless crane Temporal range: Late Pleistocene | |
|---|---|
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| Tibiotarsus of Antigone cubensis (top), with those of Propelargus edwardsi (middle) and Palaelodus gracilipes (bottom) for comparison, at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Gruiformes |
| Family: | Gruidae |
| Genus: | Antigone |
| Species: | †A. cubensis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Antigone cubensis Fischer & Stephan, 1971 | |
| Synonyms | |
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References
- William Suárez (2020). "The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba". Zootaxa. 4780 (1): 1–53. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4780.1.1.
- Olson, Storrs L. (1978). "A paleontological perspective of West Indian birds and mammals" (PDF). In Gill, Frank (ed.). Zoogeography in the Caribbean: The 1975 Leidy Medal Symposium. Special Publication 13. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. pp. 99–117 [106]. ISBN 1422317854.
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