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Re: More on Argentavis

and then entered Africa around the
Oligocene-Miocene boundary.


Probably earlier, if _Struthio coppensi_ (or
_Struthioolithus coppensi_) is good: Namibia, 20 mya,
osteologically rather "modern".


The O-M boundary was 23.03 Ma ago...

Synonymizing a taxon with an ootaxon from the Miocene sounds like a bad idea, BTW.

Kurochkin summed up the Asian record in 1976
(Smiths.Contrib.Paleobiol.27) and here he lists 5
sites that I'd call reasonably good candidates based
on date and location alone*, notably a good Middle
Oligocene record. Ratites? Not even a bit of eggshell.
Ergilornithids, ecologically somewhat convergent?
Numerous.

*Palaeotis* lived in a paratropical rainforest. If it was an ostrich (...complete lack of cladistic analyses with a serious sampling of fossil ratites...), that means the ostriches must have changed from forest birds to grassland birds at some time. Perhaps that was the Miocene/Pliocene when the Eurasian grasslands developed.