Fossil birds from late Quaternary deposits in New Caledonia

Balouet, Jean Christophe, and Storrs L. Olson. Fossil Birds from Late Quaternary Deposits in New Caledonia. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, number 469, 38 pages, 16 figures, 13 tables, 1989.—Cave deposits in New Caledonia have produced fossils of 32 species of nonpasserine birds. Of these, 11 are extinct and known only as fossils. The giant galliform Sylviornis neocaledoniae is the only one of these to have been described previously. The following new species are described herein: Accipiter efficax, Accipiter quartus, Megapodius molistructor, Caloenas canacorum, Gallicolumba longitarsus, Tyto? letocarti, Porphyrio kukwiedei, Rhynochetos orarius. Two additional resident species, Ninox cf. N. novaeseelandiae and Coenocorypha? sp., and one migrant species, Charadrius mongolus, are new to the island. Five genera, Megapodius, Caloenas, Gallicolumba, Ninox, and Coenocorypha?, are new to the avifauna of New Caledonia. Abundant recent fossils of Turnix are smaller than T. varia from Australia or fossils from older deposits in New Caledonia. Several bones, including juveniles, of Anas gracilis are smaller than in a good series of skeletons from Australia and may represent an extinct resident population. Most of the fossils come from late Holocene deposits nearly or quite contemporaneous with the arrival of man in New Caledonia and most or all of the extinctions observed probably resulted from human disturbance. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: The coral Montastrea cavernosa (Linnaeus). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicalion Data Balouet, Jean Christophe Fossil birds from late Quaternary deposits in New Caledonia. (Smithsonian contributions to zoology ; no. 469) Bibliography: p. SupL of Docs, no.: SI 1.27:469 1. Birds, Fossil. 2. Paleontology—Quaternary. 3. Paleontology—New Caledonia. I. Olson Storrs L II Title. III. Series. QL1.S54 no. 469 [QE871] 591 s [568] 88-600080