Palaeophasianus Temporal range:
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Infraclass: | Palaeognathae |
Family: | † Geranoididae |
Genus: | †
Palaeophasianus Shufeldt, 1913 |
Species: | †P. meleagroides
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Binomial name | |
†Palaeophasianus meleagroides Shufeldt, 1913
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Synonyms | |
Palaeophasianus is an extinct genus of flightless Geranoididae birds that lived in North America during the Eocene period. Robert Wilson Shufeldt classified Palaeophasianus as a galliform when he described it in 1913. [1] However it was transferred to Cracidae in 1964 by Pierce Brodkorb, [2] while Joel Cracraft in 1968 placed it in Gruiformes. [3] [4]
The only species in this genus is P. meleagroides, [5] [6] and it is described as a "ground-dwelling carnivore". [6] The fossil remains were found by the American Museum expedition of 1910 in Big Horn County, Wyoming, in the Willwood formation (early Eocene). [7]