New specimen of Cuban macaw (2 Viewers)

[albertonykus]

Zelenkov, N.V. (2024)
Cuban macaw Ara tricolor in the Upper Pleistocene of western Cuba
Doklady Biological Sciences (advance online publication)
doi: 10.1134/S0012496624700947

The Cuban macaw Ara tricolor (Bechstein, 1811) is an extinct species of large parrots. Its historical distribution and ecology are poorly understood. To date, only three late Quaternary paleontological and one archeozoological (17th–18th centuries) finds of the species have been described from central Cuba. A new (fourth) fossil find of the Cuban macaw is described and is a fragmentary carpometacarpus from Upper Pleistocene layers of the El Abrón Cave in the Pinar del Río province. The find provides the first documented evidence of the species from the western part of Cuba. The associated fauna indicates that the Cuban macaw lived in mosaic, semi-open marshy landscapes, which were probably similar to those in the vicinity of Ciénaga de Zapata in modern times.

 

[Fred Ruhe]

On the correct spelling os the scientific name of Ara autochthones Wetmore, 1937, used by Nikita Zelenkov throughout the paper I wrote about this subject some years ago:

Ara autocthones

A question for the nomenclaturists under us: Yesterday I received after a very long search a 1937 paper by Alexander Wetmore from a dear friend. In it he describes a left tibiotarsus from St. Croix as a new species of Ara: and calls it Ara autocthones. Sp. nov. He uses this name throughout the...

www.birdforum.net

Wetmore gave the new species the name Ara autocthones Wetmore, 1937, not Ara autochthones Wetmore, 1937, he also used the name Ara autocthones Wetmore, 1937 in 1956 (
Alexander Wetmore, 1956: A Check-list of the Fossil and Prehistoric Birds of North America and the West Indies Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections ● Volume 131, №. 5 Publication 4228 Smithsonian Institution Press, City of Washington). Also Pierce Brodkorb in his catologue used Ara autocthones Wetmore, 1937. I think the extra (bonus) h is thanks to Storrs Olson, but not correct.

Fred

 

[Fred Ruhe]

Fig. 1. The carpometacarpus of the Cuban macaw A. tricolor (Bechstein, 1811) as compared with modern Psittacidae and Columbidae: (a, e, h) A. tricolor, specimen PIN no. 5781/39; El Abrón Cave, Pinar del Río province, Cuba; Upper Pleistocene; (b) Ara militaris (Linnaeus, 1766), specimen 2006.0311, Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona; modern species; (c, f) Amazona eucocephala (Linnaeus, 1756), PIN osteological collection, specimen no. 97-231-1; modern species; (d, h) Columba livia Gmelin, 1789, PIN osteological collection, specimen no. 91-1-1; modern species. Views: (a–d) dorsal, (e–g) caudal, (h) ventral. Designations: dtc, dorsal margin of the trochlea carpalis; fcc, fovea carpalis caudalis; mim, metacarpalia minor; tc, trochlea carpalis; vtc, ventral margin of the trochlea carpalis. The proximal part of the metacarpalia minor is indicated with an arrow (convex dorsally in Psittacidae; see text).


Fred