Miodytes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Miodytes Temporal range: Early Miocene | |
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| Life restoration of Miodytes | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Podicipediformes |
| Family: | Podicipedidae |
| Genus: | †Miodytes Dimitreijevich, Gál & Kessler, 2002 |
| Type species | |
| †Miodytes serbicus Dimitreijevich, Gál & Kessler, 2002 | |
Miodytes is a fossil genus of grebe known from a nearly complete specimen from Valjevo Basin, western Serbia known from an almost complete right wing skeleton. It contains a single species, M. serbicus.
The specimen was collected from Bela Stena, Suseoke village. The binomial nomenclature for Miodytes serbicus means "Serbian Miocene diver".[1]
Description
The holotype specimen of Miodytes is a slab that contains the right wing skeleton of the bird, nearly completed, consisting of the distal fragment of humerus, ulna, radius, carpometacarpus and parts of the wingtips (RGF 97/3). Due to the nature of the bones in the slab, the authors Dimitreijevich et al. (2002) used the humerus part and the carpometacarpus to provide comparative anatomy and a diagnosis. Miodytes can be differentiated from other grebes as the genus has a well developed epicondylus ventralis and a very deep and long sulcus musculi brachialis. The processus supracondylaris dorsalis is absent from the humerus. There are elements that are similar to grebes, petrels, and shorebirds from the specimen in which the authors proclaimed of the three groups, Miodytes is most similar to grebes.[1]
