Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum (1985) (18236377879)

Title: Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum
Identifier: annalsofsouthafr97198sout (find matches)
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: South African Museum
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: Cape Town : The Museum
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



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66 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM complete paratypical coracoid yielded practically identical results. By either standard, G. apelex has a relatively longer humerus, ulna, and carpometacarpus than any of the species compared except G. eremita. The relative shortness of the tarsometatarsus in Geronticus, as compared to Threskiornis and Plegadis, is also demonstrated. The greater similarity in the proportions of the wing of G. apelex to those of G. eremita, as opposed to G. calvus, may reflect migratory or nomadic propensities in the fossil species. G. eremita migrates well out of its breeding area in the autumn and early winter, whereas G. calvus is more sedentary. In lacking the great occipital expansion of G. calvus, the fossil species is hkewise more similar to G. eremita, in which the occipital crest is much less developed. Within Geronticus, the lack of an expanded occipital crest would almost certainly be primitive, as such a crest occurs nowhere else in the family. The narrower and less flattened mandible of G. apelex is also more similar to that of G. eremita than G. calvus. The ranges of G. eremita and G. calvus are now widely separated, with the former having occurred historically in Europe, the Middle East, and in northern Africa, ahhough it is now reduced to two breeding populations, one in Turkey and the other in Morocco (Smith 1970). Geronticus calvus is restricted to South Africa, being found in mountainous areas from southern Transvaal to north- eastern Cape Province, having formerly extended to the south-western Cape (Siegfried 1966). The two species of Geronticus are now commonly regarded as forming a 'superspecies' (e.g. Snow 1978). The superspecies concept has become
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Fig. 5. Left coracoids of Geronticus (A-B) and distal ends of left tibiotarsi of Threskiornis (C-D). A. G. apelex, sp. nov., paratype, SAM-PQ-L13052W2. B. G. calvus, TM 33434. C. T. aff. aethiopicus, SAM-PQ-L28479G. D. T. aethiopicus, USNM 558413. A and B, natural size; C and D, twice natural size.