CRETACEOUS PARROT

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Just read the paper, and as far as I can tell the case is compelling: 
I am particularly impressed by the K-shaped neurovascular canal 
pattern. As Stidham notes, this is known only for parrots. Certain 
characters make the jaw look more like a loriid (lory) than anything 
else, but Stidham notes that some of these features are also seen in 
psittacids including macaws. The full ref is..

STIDHAM, T.A. 1998. A lower jaw from a Cretaceous parrot. _Nature_ 
396: 29-30.

News about this fossil has been knocking around for quite some time, 
and it's good to see it in print. Stidham should be 
congratulated for mustering what might be called the courage to 
publish such a controversial fossil. I note one error.. in listing 
all occurrences of extant higher avian taxa reported from Cretaceous 
strata, Stidham cites Olson and Parris' (1987) assemblage from New 
Jersey. This assemblage includes several members of the poorly 
defined paraphyletic 'form group' Graculavidae, the unusual and large 
form _Anatulavis (previously _Telmatornis_) rex_ and the primitive 
procellariform _Tytthostonyx_. I may have spelt the genera names 
wrong there, as I have no means of checking them. However, it is 
widely acknowledged that Olson and Parris' assemblage is not of 
Cretaceous age, but is Palaeocene. 

If this is incorrect it's news to me.

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk