Cáscaras de huevo de tipo <i>Aepyornis</i> del Mioceno Superior de Alicante (España). Aproximación filogenética.

Abstract

The Torrellano site (Upper Miocene, Alicante Province, Spain) has yielded hundreds of eggshell fragments of the ornithoid basic type, characterised mainly by their important thickness and by the presence of pores inside slit-like grooves. Similar eggshells have been found in many Tertiary and Quaternary sites of Asia, Africa and Europe. In all cases it has been established the similarity with the eggshells of the extinct giant Aepyornithidae ratite Aepyornis maximus. The eggshells of the new Torrellano site are described and compared with similar material. Some of the described characters are used in a cladistic analysis together with extant ratites (Struthio, Rhea, Apteryx, Dromaius, Casuarius), the genus Tinamus, and fossil material (Diamantornis wardi, Diamantornis corbetti and Dinornithidae). The resulting cladogram from extant ratite data, corroborates previous works and show that eggshells characters bear phylogenetic information and thus are useful in the establishment of relationship hypothesis. Torrellano eggshells are included within the crown-group ratites, although in a politomy which can not be resolved with the used characters. On the other side, Struthio appears as the sister group of the parataxa D. wardi y D. corbetti, which could confirm previous hypothesis of their possible relationship with the family Struthionidae.