Casuarius lydekkeri Rothschild, 1911
Pygmy cassowary
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Casuarius lydekki Rothschild, 1911 (orthographic error); Casuarius lydekkeri Rich et al., 1988 (incorrect author)
Rothschild (1911) described Casuarius lydekkeri based upon information provided in (Lydekker, 1891), who based his brief mention of the species on a specimen sent to the British Museum by the Trustees of the Australian Museum, Sydney (Miller, 1962:235).
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Late Pleistocene
Distribution
Australia & New Guinea
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Holotype: AM MF 1268 (distal end of right tibiotarsus)
Type locality: reported as Wellington Valley, New South Wales by (Lydekker, 1891), but Queensland in the original scientific description of the species (Rothschild, 1911). The preservation of the holotype is similar to that from Queensland's Darling Downs (Worthy & Nguyen, 2020)
Other material:
CPC F23025
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Rothschild, Walter. (1911). On the former and present distribution of the so-called Ratitae or ostrich-like birds. In: Verhandlungen des V. lnternationalen Ornithologen-Kongresses in Berlin, ed. H. Schalow, 144-69. Berlin: Deutsche Ornithologische Gesellschaft.
Other references:
Boles, Walter E. (1992). Revision of Dromaius gidju Patterson and Rich 1987 from Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, Australia, with a reassessment of its generic position. Los Angeles County Museum, Science Series 36: 195-208.
Hardy, John William (ed.). "Recent Literature". Auk 80(4): 584.
Lydekker, R. (1891). Catalogue of the fossil birds in the British Museum (Natural History) London. 386 pp.
Miller, Alden H. (1962). The history and significance of the fossil Casuarius lydekkeri. Records of the Australian Museum 25(10): 235-238.
Naish, Darren and Perron, Richard. (2014). Structure and function of the cassowary’s casque and its implications for cassowary history, biology and evolution. Historical Biology 28(4): 507-518. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2014.985669
Plane, Michael D. (1967). Stratigraphy and vertebrate fauna of the Otibanda Formation, New Guinea. Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (Australia) Bulletin 86: 1-64. [possible additional material of this species]
Rich, P. V., Plane, Michael, and Schroeder, N. (1988). A pygmy cassowary (Casuarius lydekkeri) from late Pleistocene bog deposits at Pureni, Papua New Guinea. Bur. Min. Res. Aust. Geol. Geophys. 10(4): 377-389.
Rothschild, L. W. R. (1907). Extinct birds, an attempt to write in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times, that is within the last six or seven hundred years: to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction / by the Hon. Walter Rothschild. London: Hutchinson & Co. XXIX + 243 pp.
Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M., Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]
Tyrberg, Tommy. (2008). The Late Pleistocene Continental Avian extinction – an evaluation of the fossil evidence. Oryctos 7: 249-269.
Worthy, Trevor H. and Nguyen, Jacqueline M. T. (2020). An annotated checklist of the fossil birds of Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 144(1): 66-108.
<< Back to the Casuariiformes (Casowaries and Emus) database