| Aegialornis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Aegialornis gallicus | |
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Clade: | Strisores |
| Order: | Apodiformes |
| Family: | †Aegialornithidae Lydekker, 1891 |
| Genus: | †Aegialornis Lydekker, 1891 |
| Species | |
Aegialornis gallicus(type) | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Aegialornis[1]is agenus of prehistoricapodiformbirds. It formed a distinctfamily, theAegialornithidae, and was in some ways intermediate between modernswifts andowlet-nightjars, lacking the more extreme adaptations to an aerial lifestyle that swifts show today, but already having sickle-shaped wings like them. They do not appear to be a direct ancestor of modern swifts, however, but rather a group that retained an overall basal morphology. Altogether, they were not too dissimilar from moderntreeswifts.
Fossils ofAegialornis have been found in Middle to LateEocene deposits of Germany and France. An Early Eocene record from theNanjemoy Formation ofVirginia, United States (USNM 496384) is very doubtful, as apodiform birds seem not to have occurred there until after the Eocene. This bone might more properly belong to theParvicuculidae.[2] The taxonomy of the species is quite convoluted, with both the smallerA. germanicus and the largerA. leenhardti being sometimes consideredjunior synonyms ofA. gallicus, which in turn is sometimes erroneously assumed to be identical toCypselavus gallicus. Similarly,A. broweri is occasionally considered to be based on small individuals ofA. wetmorei, and these latter two taxa were recently separated as genusMesogiornis (Mlíkovský, 2002); this does not appear to have found general acceptance however. The presumed speciesAegialornis szarskii is now placed inScaniacypselus.
Which genera apart from the present one should be included in the Aegialornithidae is not quite certain.Primapus belongs either here or is a basal true swift, andCypselavus is either an aegialornithid or a treeswift. The latter group is sometimes controversially included in the Aegialornithidae, as are theJungornithidae, another prehistoric apodiform family that was somewhat intermediate between treeswifts and hummingbirds.
.jpg){kind=link}