@article{3d237cd6ce5e474c826b1505ad8d0bd2,
title = "New specimens of the early Eocene bird Vastanavis and the interrelationships of stem group Psittaciformes",
abstract = "We describe new skeletal elements of Vastanavis from the early Eocene Cambay Shale Formation of western India, including a small coracoid that represents an unnamed new species, and comment on the relationships between this avian taxon and the recently described Avolatavis from the early Eocene Green River Formation in North America. Like the previously described ones, the new Vastanavis bones resemble those of the late Eocene Quercypsittidae, thus strengthening psittaciform affinities of the Indian taxon. Vastanavis differs from Avolatavis in the presence of a crista medianoplantaris on the tarsometatarsus and in claw morphology, but a fossil from the early Eocene London Clay, which was previously assigned to Vastanavidae, closely resembles Avolatavis in these features and all other osteological aspects. We show that most branches in a recent phylogeny of stem group Psittaciformes collapse after modification of a single erroneous character scoring for Vastanavis. We further describe a morphologically distinctive distal humerus of a small bird resembling the stem group nyctibiid Paraprefica, which was discovered in the most recent excavation in Vastan Lignite Mine.",
keywords = "Avolatavis, India, Vastanavidae, fossil birds, phylogeny",
author = "G. Mayr and Rana, {R. S.} and Rose, {K. D.} and A. Sahni and K. Kumar and T. Smith",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Sven Tr{\"a}nkner for taking the photo graphs, Daniel Ksepka for providing the nexus file of the character matrix used in the analysis, and Jonathan and Julie Smith for assisting in the prepara tion of the material. We further acknowledge com ments by the reviewer, Cecile Mourer Chauvire, who also draw our attention to the similarities of the small Vastan humerus and Nyctibiidae. We are grateful to Heather Ahrens, Rachel Dunn, Annelise Folie, Francois Gould, Gina McKusick, Pieter Missiaen, Lachham Singh, and Hukam Singh for assisting in the field work, and to personnel of the Gujarat Industrial Power Corporation Ltd. for facilitating our excava tions at Vastan Lignite Mine. Field work and research were supported by the National Geographic Society (grants 6868 00, 7938 05, 8356 07, 8710 09, and 8958 11 to K.D.R., A.S. and T.S.), the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (ESS/23/Ves092/2000 to R.S.R.), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of India (ES grant 560, 21/EMR II to A.S.), the Director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India (to K.K.), and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (MO/36/020 to T.S.).",
year = "2013",
doi = "10.1134/S0031030113110105",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "47",
pages = "1308--1314",
journal = "Paleontological Journal",
issn = "0031-0301",
publisher = "Maik Nauka-Interperiodica Publishing",
number = "11",
}