Biogeographic and paleoenvironmental implications of a new woodpecker species (Aves, Picidae) from the early Pliocene of South Africa

ABSTRACT

A fragmentary coracoid as well as isolated ulnae, carpometacarpi, and tarsometatarsi from the Varswater Formation at Langebaanweg, South Africa (early Pliocene), can be assigned to a new genus and species of true woodpecker (Picidae, Picinae), Australopicus nelsonmandelai, gen. et sp. nov. The new taxon is the first documented pre-Pleistocene record of woodpeckers from the entire African continent and it is clearly distinct from the three extant lineages of Picinae that are endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, i.e., Campethera-Geocolaptes, Dendropicos, and Dendrocopos obsoletus. Our phylogenetic analysis shows that the new taxon forms a clade with the extant woodpecker genera Celeus and Dryocopus, which do not occur in Africa, but in the Americas and Eurasia. The new taxon represents a previously unknown fourth lineage of African woodpeckers of Eurasian origin that probably became isolated on the African continent as a result of environmental changes during the Miocene. Evidence for an arboreal true woodpecker in the fossil record strongly supports previous hypotheses regarding the presence of riverine forests at Langebaanweg during the early Pliocene.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank S. Tränkner (Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut, Frankfurt) for taking the photographs; G. Avery, D. Hamerton, T. Matthews, R. Smith, D. Stynder, and K. van Willingh (Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town), D. de Swardt, T. L. Morapedi, and R. Nuttall (National Museum, Bloemfontein), G. Mayr (Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut, Frankfurt), J. Cooper and R. Prŷs-Jones (Natural History Museum/Bird Group Tring), and P. Haarhoff (West Coast Fossil Park) for allowing access to collections. A.M. thanks V. de Pietri (Naturhistorisches Museum Bern) and L. Costeur (Naturhistorisches Museum Basel) for information on the corrected age for the Devil's Gulch Member of the Valentine Formation, Nebraska. We thank T. Worthy, N. Zelenkov, and an anonymous reviewer for their critical comments, which greatly improved a previous version of the manuscript. Postdoctoral grant of the South African NRF/African Origins Platform/West Coast Fossil Park Initiative to A.L. and A.M., NSF grant 0321893 HOMINID-RHOI and Synthesys grant GB-TAF-1341 to A.L., and German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Fellowship Programme grants BMBF-LPD 9901/8–183 and LPDR-2009–1 and DFG grant MA 4809/1–1 to A.M. supported this research.

Handling editor: Trevor Worthy

Notes

^†Measurements taken from Brodkorb (1970).

^†Measurements taken from Feduccia (1987).