Law's Diving-goose

Taxobox
name = Law's Diving-goose
status = Fossil


image_caption = Law's Diving-goose and "Oncorhynchus rastrosus"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
ordo = Anseriformes
familia = Anatidae
genus = "Chendytes"
species = "C. lawi"
binomial = "Chendytes lawi"
binomial_authority = Miller, 1925

The Law's Diving-goose "Chendytes lawi" was a goose-sized flightless sea duck, once common on the California coast, California Channel Islands, and possibly southern Oregon. It lived in the Pleistocene and survived into the Holocene. It appears to have gone extinct about [2,400-2,200 BP] [Jones, T.L. et al. 2008: The Protracted Holocene extinction of California's flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) and its implications for the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis, PNAS, Vol. 105, no. 11, pages 4105-4108] ] . Fact|date=January 2008 The youngest direct radiocarbon date from a "Chendytes" bone fragment dates to(2,720-2,350 calendar years B.P.) and was found in an archeological site in Ventura County. Its remains have been found in fossil deposits and in early coastal archeological sites. "Archeological data from coastal California show a record of human exploitation of "Chendytes lawi" for at least 8,000 years [¹] ." It was probably driven to extinction by hunting, animal predation, and loss of habitat. There is nothing in the North American archaeological record indicating a span of exploitation for any megafaunal genera remotely as long as that of "Chendytes" [¹] .

References

* Miller, Loye H. (1925): "Chendytes", a Diving Goose from the California Pleistocene. "Condor (journal)" 27(4): 145-147. [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v027n04/p0145-p0147.pdf PDF fulltext] ¹*Jones, T.L. (2008): The Protracted Holocene extinction of California's flightless sea duck ("Chendytes lawi") and its implications for the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis. PNAS (journal)VOl. 105, no. 11:4105-4108.