The Cretaceous Birds of New Jersey

Part 1

Transcriber Note: Text emphasis denoted as Italics and =Bold=.

The Cretaceous Birds of New Jersey

STORRS L. OLSON

and

DAVID C. PARRIS

SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEOBIOLOGY • NUMBER 63

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Robert McC. Adams Secretary Smithsonian Institution

SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEOBIOLOGY · NUMBER 63

The Cretaceous Birds of New Jersey

Storrs L. Olson and David C. Parris

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

Washington, D.C.

1987

ABSTRACT

Olson, Storrs L., and David C. Parris. The Cretaceous Birds of New Jersey. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, number 63, 22 pages, 11 figures, 1987.--This is a revision of the fossil birds from Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian; Hornerstown and Navesink formations) deposits in New Jersey. Material of previously named taxa, described over a century ago, is augmented by more recently collected specimens from a new locality at the Inversand Company marl pits near Sewell, Gloucester County. With about 8 genera and 9 species, this is the most diverse Cretaceous avifauna yet known. Most species belong to a group of primitive Charadriiformes resembling in limb morphology the fossil family Presbyornithidae and the living family Burhinidae. These are tentatively referred to the “form family” Graculavidae Fürbringer, 1888, with its provisional synonyms Palaeotringinae Wetmore, 1940; Telmatornithidae Cracraft, 1972, and Laornithidae Cracraft, 1972. The species included are: Graculavus velox Marsh, 1872; Telmatornis priscus Marsh, 1870 (synonyms: Telmatornis affinis Marsh, 1870; Graculavus pumilis Marsh, 1872; Palaeotringa vetus Marsh, 1870); Anatalavis rex (Shufeldt, 1915); Laornis edvardsianus Marsh, 1870; Palaeotringa littoralis Marsh, 1870; P. vagans Marsh, 1872; and an undescribed genus and species probably different from any of the preceding. Anatalavis is proposed as a new genus for Telmatornis rex Shufeldt, 1915. A new family, genus, and species (Tytthostonychidae, Tytthostonyx glauconiticus) is proposed for a humerus showing similarities to the Pelecaniformes and Procellariiformes and tentatively referred to the latter, along with an ulna of a much smaller species. The species in this fauna appear to be part of the modern radiation of neognathous birds, but none can be referred to modern families.

Official publication date is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. Series cover design: The trilobite Phacops rana Green. /X Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Olson, Storrs L. The cretaceous birds of New Jersey. (Smithsonian contributions to paleobiology; no. 63) Bibliography: p. 1 Birds Fossil. 2. Paleontology--Cretaceous. 3. Paleontology--New Jersey. I. Parris, David C. II. Title. III. Series. QE701.S56 no. 63 560 s 86-29837 [QE871] [568’.09749] X/

Contents

Page

Introduction 1

Acknowledgments 1

The Fossil Localities and Their Stratigraphy 1

Order Charadriiformes 4

“Form Family” Graculavidae Fürbringer, 1888 4

Part 2

Genus Graculavus Marsh, 1872 4

Graculavus velox Marsh, 1872 4

Graculavus velox? 6

Genus Telmatornis Marsh, 1870 6

Telmatornis priscus Marsh, 1870 6

Genus Anatalavis, new genus 11

Anatalavis rex (Shufeldt, 1915), new combination 11

Genus Laornis Marsh, 1870 12

Laornis edvardsianus Marsh, 1870 12

Genus Palaeotringa Marsh, 1870 12

Palaeotringa littoralis Marsh, 1870 12

Palaeotringa littoralis? 14

Palaeotringa vagans Marsh, 1872 14

Graculavidae, Genus and Species Indeterminate 14

Order Procellariiformes? 14

Family Tytthostonychidae, new family 16

Genus Tytthostonyx, new genus 16

Tytthostonyx glauconiticus, new species 16

Family and Genus Indeterminate 16

Aves, incertae sedis 19

Discussion 19

Appendix 20

Literature Cited 21

The Cretaceous Birds of New Jersey

Storrs L. Olson and David C. Parris

Introduction

Fossils of Cretaceous birds are scarce and usually difficult to interpret. The better known forms such as Hesperornis and Ichthyornis belong to strange and archaic groups having little or nothing to do with the modern avian radiation. The only areas that have yielded Cretaceous birds of essentially modern aspect in sufficient quantities to be regarded as avifaunal assemblages are the inland deposits of the Lance Formation and strata of similar age in Wyoming (Brodkorb, 1963a) and the marine deposits of New Jersey. Of these, the assemblage from New Jersey is the more diverse.

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.

Part 3

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=

The extensive deposits of Cretaceous age in eastern North America have been widely studied for over 150 years. These generally poorly consolidated sediments have provided valuable resources, notably glauconite, fire clay, and chalk. As the publications by Morton (1829), Vanuxem (1829), Conrad (1869), and other early authors showed, the sediments are also quite fossiliferous.

In the eastern United States, significant Cretaceous deposits occur from New Jersey to Texas (Figure 1), with extensive outcrop and subsurface records in both Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains. The surface distribution and correlations were first summarized by Stephenson et al. (1942). Subsequent works by various authorities have refined, but not substantially altered his views of outcrop stratigraphy. Petroleum exploration has encouraged more recent restudy of the subsurface stratigraphy, notably along the east coast (Minard et al., 1974; Perry et al., 1975; Petters, 1976).

In New Jersey, the latest Cretaceous deposits are remarkably rich in glauconite, especially the Navesink and Hornerstown formations. Besides providing a local industry in agricultural fertilizers, the glauconite greensands, locally called “marl,” yielded many specimens to the fiercely competitive vertebrate paleontologists of the nineteenth century. Preservation of vertebrate fossils in a glauconite deposit may be excellent, apparently due to autochthonous formation of the mineral and the probable quiescence of the depositional environment. The Hornerstown Formation, for example, contains few grains of terrigenous origin and little evidence of disturbance by water currents. Such depositional environments were apparently favorable for the preservation of small and delicate bones. The accumulation of sediment occurred during a period of marine transgression with the shoreline not far to the northwest but at sufficient distance to prevent deposition of terrigenous material.

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