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More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography

Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia) has yielded remains of a faunal community that included small-bodied and small-brained hominins, dwarf proboscideans, Komodo dragons, vultures and giant marabou storks (Leptoptilos robustus). Previous research suggested that L. robustus evolved from a smaller Leptoptilo...

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Autores principales: Meijer, Hanneke J. M., Sutikna, Thomas, Wahyu Saptomo, E., Tocheri, Matthew W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277297/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845853
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220435
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author Meijer, Hanneke J. M.
Sutikna, Thomas
Wahyu Saptomo, E.
Tocheri, Matthew W.
author_facet Meijer, Hanneke J. M.
Sutikna, Thomas
Wahyu Saptomo, E.
Tocheri, Matthew W.
author_sort Meijer, Hanneke J. M.
collection PubMed
description Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia) has yielded remains of a faunal community that included small-bodied and small-brained hominins, dwarf proboscideans, Komodo dragons, vultures and giant marabou storks (Leptoptilos robustus). Previous research suggested that L. robustus evolved from a smaller Leptoptilos dubius-like Middle Pleistocene ancestor and may have been flightless. However, analyses of this species' considerably expanded hypodigm (n = 43, MNI = 5), which includes 21 newly discovered bones described here for the first time, reveals that the wing bones of L. robustus were well-developed and this species was almost certainly capable of active flight. Moreover, L. robustus bones are broadly similar to Leptoptilos falconeri remains from sites in Africa and Eurasia, and its overall size range is comparable to fossils attributed to L. falconeri and similar specimens, as well as those of Leptoptilos lüi (China) and Leptoptilos titan (Java). This suggests that a Pleistocene dispersal of L. falconeri into Island Southeast Asia may have given rise to populations of giant marabou storks in this region. As L. robustus and L. titan are the most recent known representatives of these once plentiful giant marabou storks, Island Southeast Asia likely acted as a refugium for the last surviving members of this lineage.
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spelling pubmed-92772972022-07-15 More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography Meijer, Hanneke J. M. Sutikna, Thomas Wahyu Saptomo, E. Tocheri, Matthew W. R Soc Open Sci Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia) has yielded remains of a faunal community that included small-bodied and small-brained hominins, dwarf proboscideans, Komodo dragons, vultures and giant marabou storks (Leptoptilos robustus). Previous research suggested that L. robustus evolved from a smaller Leptoptilos dubius-like Middle Pleistocene ancestor and may have been flightless. However, analyses of this species' considerably expanded hypodigm (n = 43, MNI = 5), which includes 21 newly discovered bones described here for the first time, reveals that the wing bones of L. robustus were well-developed and this species was almost certainly capable of active flight. Moreover, L. robustus bones are broadly similar to Leptoptilos falconeri remains from sites in Africa and Eurasia, and its overall size range is comparable to fossils attributed to L. falconeri and similar specimens, as well as those of Leptoptilos lüi (China) and Leptoptilos titan (Java). This suggests that a Pleistocene dispersal of L. falconeri into Island Southeast Asia may have given rise to populations of giant marabou storks in this region. As L. robustus and L. titan are the most recent known representatives of these once plentiful giant marabou storks, Island Southeast Asia likely acted as a refugium for the last surviving members of this lineage. The Royal Society 2022-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9277297/ /pubmed/35845853 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220435 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
Meijer, Hanneke J. M.
Sutikna, Thomas
Wahyu Saptomo, E.
Tocheri, Matthew W.
More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title_full More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title_fullStr More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title_full_unstemmed More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title_short More bones of Leptoptilos robustus from Flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
title_sort more bones of leptoptilos robustus from flores reveal new insights into giant marabou stork paleobiology and biogeography
topic Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277297/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35845853
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220435
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