Wilaru
| Wilaru telfordi Temporal range: Late Oligocene–Early Miocene | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Burhinidae |
| Genus: | Wilaru Boles et al., 2013 |
| Species: | W. telfordi |
| Binomial name | |
| Wilaru telfordi Boles et al., 2013 | |
Wilaru telfordi is an extinct genus and species of stone-curlew from the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene of Australia. It is the oldest known burhinid. It was described from fossil material collected from Lake Pinpa, Lake Palankarinna and Billeroo Creek, in the Lake Eyre Basin of north-eastern South Australia. The genus name Wilaru is the term for “stone curlew” in the Diyari language of the Lake Eyre region. The specific epithet honours American palaeontologist Richard H. Telford (1929–2011) of the American Museum of Natural History, who led the 1971 expedition to Lake Pinpa during which much of the descriptive material was collected.[1]
References
- ↑ Walter E. Boles, Melanie A. Finch, Rene H. Hofheins, Patricia Vickers-Rich, Mary Walters and Thomas H. Rich (2013). "A fossil stone-curlew (Aves: Burhinidae) from the Late Oligocene/Early Miocene of South Australia". In Ursula B. Göhlich and Andreas Kroh (eds). Paleornithological Research 2013. Proceedings of the 8th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, Vienna, 2012 (PDF). Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. pp. 43–61. ISBN 978-3-902421-82-1.