Harrisonavis

Harrisonavis Temporal range:
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Phoenicopteriformes
Family:	Phoenicopteridae
Genus:	†Harrisonavis Kashin, 1978
Type species
Phoenicopterus croizeti Gervais, 1852

Harrisonavis is an extinct genus of flamingo that lived in the Chattian and Aquitanian epochs. It contains the single species Harrisonavis croizeti. The holotype, a skull, was discovered in France in 1852.

Description and taxonomy

Although first reported in 1852 by paleontologist Paul Gervais, the fossil was not described in detail and was lost. Several fragments of bills were attributed to Harrisonavis in the subsequent years. In 2015, another skull (specimen ML StG 203bis) was discovered in Saint-Gérand-le-Puy. This skull resembles that of a modern flamingo, albeit with a straighter beak. Based on this fossil, H. croizeti is the earliest known species of flamingo that filter feeds, and is considered to be closely related to modern flamingos. It was thus initially named as a species of the living flamingo genus Phoenicopterus. Harrison and Walker, who described one bill fragment in 1976, moved it to a new genus, Gervaisia, but the name was already in use for a millipede. Kashin renamed the genus to Harrisonavis in 1978.

Mirandornites	Phoenicoparrus     Phoenicopterus       Harrisonavis       Palaelodus

Ecology

This flamingo lived in the shallow lakes and lagoons of central France.