Cranium of an Eocene/Oligocene pheasant-sized galliform bird from western North America, with the description of a vascular autapomorphy of the Galliformes

We describe the fossil cranium of a pheasant-sized galliform land bird from latest Eocene or earliest Oligocene marine rocks of the Jansen Creek Member, Makah Formation (Washington State, USA), which is the only three-dimensionally preserved cranium of a Paleogene representative of the Galliformes. The specimen was freed from a hard calcareous nodule with dilute formic acid. Micro-computed tomography provided further osteological details and a virtual cranial endocast. The fossil exhibits a plesiomorphic temporal morphology, lacking an ossified aponeurosis zygomatica, a feature characterizing some extant Cracidae and most Odontophoridae and Phasianidae. Overall, the fossil is most similar to the skull of the Asian phasianid taxon Arborophila, but this resemblance may well be plesiomorphic for a more inclusive clade. Still, we consider it possible that the fossil represents an archaic member of the Phasianoidea, in which case it would be the earliest record of this taxon from the New World. The fossil exhibits a previously unnoticed cranial autapomorphy of galliforms, a foramen in the temporal region that enables the vena profunda to enter the braincase, for which the name foramen temporale venosum is here introduced. Consistently present in all studied extant galliform taxa and absent in all other extant birds, this foramen enables a vascular connection between the brain and the ophthalmic rete, the latter playing an important role in thermoregulation of the avian brain.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the Western Capercaillie Tetrao urogallus (Phasianidae, Tetraoninae)

The Western Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) is a galliform bird of boreal climax forests from Scandinavia to eastern Siberia, with a fragmented population in southwestern Europe. We extracted the DNA of T. urogallus aquitanicus and obtained the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence by combining Illumina and Sanger sequencing sequence data. The mitochondrial genome of T. urogallus is 16,683 bp long and is very similar to that of Lyrurus tetrix (16,677 bp). The T. urogallus mitogenome contains the normal 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs, and the control region. The number, order, and orientation of the mitochondrial genes are the same as in L. tetrix and in other species of the same and other bird families. The three domains of the control region contained conserved sequences (ETAS; CSBs), boxes (F, E, D, C, B, BS box), the putative origin of replication of the H-strand (OH) and bidirectional promoters of translation (LSP/HSP).

A small galliform bird from the Lower Eocene Fur Formation, north-western Denmark

A pair of fossilized imprints of feet represent the first published galliform (landfowl) specimenfrom the Lower Eocene Fur Formation of northwest Denmark. The specimen is referable to Galliformes due to the presence of a distinctly asymmetric trochlea metatarsi III. The specimen appears distinct from previously described Eocene Galliformes (e.g. Gallinuloididae, Quercymegapodiidae and Paraortygidae) and may represent a new taxon of Galliformes, increasing the diversity of this group in the Lower Eocene.