Potamornis

Taxobox
name = "Potamornis"
status = fossil
fossil_range = Late Cretaceous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
subclassis = Hesperornithes?
ordo = Hesperornithiformes?
familia = Hesperornithidae?
familia_authority =
genus = "Potamornis"
genus_authority =
species = "P. skutchi"
binomial = "Potamornis skutchi"
binomial_authority =

"Potamornis" is a prehistoric bird genus that dated back to the late Maastrichtian. Its scrappy remains were found in the Lance Formation at Buck Creek, USA, and a single species has been described: "Potamornis skutchi".

This was almost certainly a member of the Hesperornithes, the hefty and toothed flightless diving birds of the Mesozoic seas. Its precise relationships are not all to clear; the quadrate bone is quite unique in some respects but apparently shares more apomorphies with the family Hesperornithidae - the "typical" Hesperornithes - in cladistic analysis [Mortimer (2004)] . Consequently, it might be considered a fossil hesperornithid with a different feeding specialization. Though it was heavily built like many (flying and flightless) diving birds, it weighed perhaps 1.5 or 2 kg. This raises the possibility that the Hesperornithes not only included flying members (see also "Enaliornis"), but that their families might have evolved flightlessness independently.

Footnotes

References

* (2004): The Theropod Database: [http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Phylogeny%20of%20Taxa.html Phylogeny of taxa] . Retrieved 2008-AUG-14.