The cretaceous birds of New JerseyOlson, Storrs L.
Science
The cretaceous birds of New Jersey
Olson, Storrs L.
Birds, Fossil; Paleontology -- Cretaceous; Paleontology -- New Jersey
Fossil birds were described from the Cretaceous greensands of southern
New Jersey over a century ago by Marsh (1870, 1872). These have been
carried, largely uncritically, in lists and compilations ever since
(e.g. Hay, 1902; Lambrecht, 1933; Rapp, 1943; Miller, 1955; Brodkorb,
1963b, 1967). Although some of these specimens were subsequently
re-examined and their status altered (Shufeldt, 1915; Cracraft, 1972,
1973), there has been no modern comprehensive revision of all of the
avian taxa that have been named from the Cretaceous of New Jersey. In
recent years, additional fossil birds have been recovered from these
deposits that add further to our knowledge of late Mesozoic avifaunas,
making a review of this material all the more desirable.
In spite of the relative diversity of the New Jersey Cretaceous
avifauna, the total number of specimens is still small. The decline
of the glauconite greensand industry and the difficulty of recovering
small fossils have contributed to this paucity of specimens. The
glauconite industry is now confined to a single operation, the
Inversand Company in Sewell, Mantua Township, Gloucester County, New
Jersey. Fortunately, the late owner of the company, Mr. Churchill
Hungerford, Jr., generously allowed fossils to be recovered on his
property by the New Jersey State Museum, which houses most of the newly
discovered specimens, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
being the repository of the rest. Another specimen came from a locality
in Upper Freehold Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey and was donated
to the New Jersey State Museum by Gerard R. Case.
Acknowledgments.--We gratefully acknowledge the late Churchill
Hungerford, Jr., for permitting fossil material to be recovered from
his property by the New Jersey State Museum (NJSM). We are much
indebted to John H. Ostrom, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale
University (YPM), and Gay Vostreys and Charles Smart of the Academy
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) for their patience in
lending types and other material from their collections for a very
extended period. Pat V. Rich, Monash University, assisted Parris in
the early stages of this study. Comparative material of _Presbyornis_
was obtained from the collection of the University of California
Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), the University of Wyoming (UW), and the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (USNM).
The photographs are by Victor E. Krantz, Smithsonian Institution. For
valuable comments on the manuscript we are grateful to Donald Baird,
Princeton University, and Jonathan Becker, Smithsonian Institution.
=The Fossil Localities and Their Stratigraphy=
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