| Phoenicopterus copei | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Phoenicopteriformes |
| Family: | Phoenicopteridae |
| Genus: | Phoenicopterus |
| Species: | P. copei |
| Binomial name | |
| Phoenicopterus copei Shufeldt, 1891 | |
Phoenicopterus copei is anextinct species offlamingo that inhabited North America during theLate Pleistocene. Its fossils have been discovered inOregon,California,Mexico andFlorida. Many of these localities preserve the remains of juvenile individuals, indicating that this species nested at the lakes found there. In some areas like California and Florida it coexisted with smaller flamingo species.P. copei was a large species ofPhoenicopterus, described as being greater in size than modernAmerican flamingos.
Although multiple flamingo species are known from North America today,Phoenicopterus copei was the first fossil taxon of this family described. The species was erected byRobert Wilson Shufeldt in 1891 based on remains discovered atFossil Lake,Oregon.[1] In 1955Hildegarde Howard described the remains of two differently sized flamingos fromLake Manix in California, assigning the smaller remains to a new species and the larger toPhoenicopterus copei. However this assignment is only tentative, primarily based on the fact that the Lake Manixtarsometatarsus is visibly broadened similar to the Fossil Laketibiotarsus.[2] Howard reasons that the width of these elements matching could suggest that they belonged to the same species, seeing as the two bones would articulate with one another in life. Remains of a juvenile specimen were later also identified from the Chimalhuacan locality atLake Texcoco, approximately 20 km (12 mi) east of theZócalo.[3] The range ofP. copei was again expanded in 1995, when Steven D. Emslie reported bones assigned to the species from theIrvingtonianLeisy Shell Pit inHillsborough County,Florida. This marked the first record of the species from the eastern United States and the earliest appearance of it in the fossil record.[4]
Shufeldt describedPhoenicopterus copei as having both longer legs as well as longer wings than the modernAmerican flamingo.[1] The tibiotarsus has a distal end recognized for being broader than in either the American orgreater flamingo, with wide spaces between the individual condyles. This matches the anatomy of the intercotylar tubercle as seen in the Lake Manix specimen, which shows that that element is high and pointed like in the American flamingo, but also broadened to accommodate the more widely spaced condyles. The species appears to have been among the larger known flamingos, as Howard describes the remains of a juvenile bird from Lake Manix as being within the size range of modern American and greater flamingos, specifically noting that this does not represent the size obtained by a mature animal.[2] This is further supported by Emslie, who describesP. copei as being larger than the American flamingo.[4]
The presence of juvenile flamingo fossils indicate thatPhoenicopterus copei nested and raised its young in many of the localities it had been found in, which includes Lake Texcoco in Mexico as well as Fossil Lake in Oregon and Lake Manix in California. This indicates thatPhoenicopterus copei was a widespread genus with a significant breeding range, which may also include Hillsborough County,San Marcos andChapala based on the discovery of fragmentary remains from these regions.[3] This would match well with the preferred habitat of modern flamingos, which are found to inhabit shallow lakes that allow them to build cone-like nests from mud and offer microorganisms as a food source, which they filter from the mud and water.[1] In some parts of its range,P. copei would have coexisted with other flamingo species. Namely withPhoenicopterus minutus at Lake Manix[2] and the American flamingo in Florida. In both these instances,P. copei would have been the larger taxon.[4]
