Hunucornis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hunucornis Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Podicipediformes |
| Family: | Podicipedidae |
| Genus: | †Hunucornis Agnolín et al., 2025 |
| Type species | |
| †Hunucornis huayanen Agnolín et al., 2025 | |
Hunucornis huayanen is an extinct grebe species from the Las Flores Formation, a Miocene-aged deposit in central Argentina. It is known from two specimens containing fragmentary pieces of the left forelimb and femur. It is the oldest fossil evidence of grebes in South America.
The holotype INGEO-PV-376 and the referred material INGEO-PV-371 were collected, along with other fossil bird remains, from several field expeditions to Candelaria Creek over ten years, soon later to be described by Federico L. Agnolín, Gerardo Álvarez Herrera, Sebastián Rozadilla, and Victor Contreras in a 2025 article about this late Miocene avian assemblage. The authors named the material Hunucornis huayanen, which the genus means "Hunuc's bird", which comes from Huarpe cosmogony about the first man who was friend to the animals, and the ephipet species name is Allentiac for "swim". The name refers to the fact H. huayanen is the oldest fossil evidence of grebes in South America.[1]
