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Insight into the growth dynamics and systematic affinities of the Late Cretaceous Gargantuavis from bone microstructure

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Abstract

Enigmatic avialan remains of Gargantuavis philoinos from the Ibero-Armorican island of the Late Cretaceous European archipelago (Southern France) led to a debate concerning its taxonomic affinities. Here, we show that the bone microstructure of Gargantuavis resembles that of Apteryx, the extinct emeids and Megalapteryx from New Zealand, and indicates that like these slow-growing terrestrial birds, it took several years to attain skeletal maturity. Our findings suggest that the protracted cyclical growth in these ornithurines may have been in response to insular evolution.

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Acknowledgments

Samuel Turvey is thanked for the image of Megalapteryx. Jean Le Loeuff granted permission to sample specimen MDE-A08. The National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the Claude Leon Foundation (South Africa) are acknowledged for funding support to Chinsamy and Canoville, respectively. This work was partly supported by the Interrvie programme of CNRS. Finally, Michel Laurin, Lorna Steel and an anonymous referee are thanked for comments that have improved this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa

    Anusuya Chinsamy & Aurore Canoville

  2. Laboratoire de Géologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS (UMR 8538), 24 rue Lhomond, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Eric Buffetaut

  3. Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon (UMR5276), Université Claude Bernard—Lyon 1, 2 rue Dubois, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    Delphine Angst

Authors
  1. Anusuya Chinsamy
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  2. Eric Buffetaut
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  3. Aurore Canoville
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  4. Delphine Angst
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Correspondence to Anusuya Chinsamy.

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Communicated by: Robert R. Reisz

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Chinsamy, A., Buffetaut, E., Canoville, A. et al. Insight into the growth dynamics and systematic affinities of the Late Cretaceous Gargantuavis from bone microstructure. Naturwissenschaften 101, 447–452 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1170-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1170-6

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