Few Fossils for Extinct Pygmy Cassowary Natural History Illustrations

Summary: Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations respect three rare collections and ever so slightly resemble modern dwarf cassowaries.

head and neck illustrations of extant dwarf cassowary (Casuarius bennetti), species thought to somewhat resemble extinct pygmy cassowary: J. Gould's The Birds of Australia Supplement (1868), Public Domain via Internet Archive

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations await a more accurate, amplified analysis with the additional appearance of fossil specimens beyond the acknowledged accumulation on mainland Australia and, northward, on Papua New Guinea.

Extinct pygmy cassowaries bear their common name as the smallest cassowary member of the Casuariidae family of one extant emu species and three extant cassowary species. They carry the scientific name Casuarius lydekkeri from the Papuan words kasu and weri for "horned head," and for Richard Lydekker (July 25, 1849-April 16, 1915). Respective descriptions in 1891 and 1911 by the London-born geologist and the London-born zoologist Lionel Walter Rothschild (Feb. 8, 1868-Aug. 27, 1937) drive the scientific name.

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations ensue from expeditiously extracting a tibiotarsus's (shin-shank) distal (farther) end from Pleistocene ("Newest") Age sediments 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago.

The Ice Age tibiotarsus fits into extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations as the holotype (standard) specimen that furnished the species' official scientific description and name.

The Trustees of the Australian Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, gave the British Museum the cast of a specimen of four geographically disparate suggested provenances. The Mining Museum, Australian Museum and University of California Museum of Paleontology held the original respectively as unnumbered, MF 1268 in the 1940s and in 1954. Alden H. Miller (Feb. 4, 1906-Oct. 9, 1965) of the Berkeley-based museum identified the original, in November 1960, as inspiring British Museum cast number A 158.

A Mining Museum-labeled tray, Lydekker descriptions and Rothschild keys respectively judged MF 1268 (now AMF50094) as from diatomaceous deposits at Cooma, Wellington Valley "cavern-deposits" and Queensland.

Cooma and Wellington Caves never kept diatomaceous deposits or AMF50094-like kinds of bone fossilization while nobody knows of Queensland as other than a lapsus ("[involuntary] error").

Like fossils near Bulolo at Awe and Pureni, Southern Highlands, let Michael Plane, Patricia Vickers Rich and Natalie Schroeder list Papua New Guinea in June 1988. The Bureau of Mineral Resources geologist and the two Monash University earth scientists mentioned phalanges (fingers) from Awe's Pliocene ("[continuation of the modern-like] more recent") sediments. They noted the Pureni-fossilized synsacrum and partial pelvis, left and right femora (thigh) and proximal (nearer) tarsometatarsi (shank-foot), distal and proximal tibiotarsus and left distal tarsometatarsus.

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations offer an obscurely flightless bird from one leg bone, three finger bones from Awe and eight skeletal bones from Pureni.

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations present the smallest known cassowary with the deepest-ended, deepest-jointed shin-shank bone, the narrowest, shallowest pelvis and the narrowest, trimmest thigh.

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations queue up deep-ended, smooth-margined shank-foot bones with deep, muscle-based depressions, distal foramen (lower-end openings) and unobtrusively rising and splaying undersides. The Plane, Rich and Schroeder article resisted "significant differences" between AMF50094 and CPC26605a-h, excluding the former's shin-shank grooves "deeper with respect to width" than the latter's. It suggested Awe fingers as longer than somewhat similarly compressed, deep dwarf pygmy cassowary fingers and smaller than present-day northerners (Casuarius unappendiculatus) and southerners (Casuarius casuarius).

Extinct pygmy cassowary natural history illustrations tend toward dwarf pygmy-like biogeographies and fingers and pelvises on fossils otherwise "clearly distinct from corresponding bones of extant cassowaries."

Cast at the British Museum, described in 1891 by English geologist Richard Lydekker, was made from right distal tibiotarsus fossil of extinct pygmy cassowary (Casuarius lydekkeri) held in Australian Museum (1872 photo), Sydney, New South Wales: State Library of New South Wales, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

head and neck illustrations of extant dwarf cassowary (Casuarius bennetti), species thought to resemble extinct pygmy cassowary; English ornithologist and avian artist John Gould (Sept. 14, 1804-Feb. 3, 1881), illustrator; English zoological illustrator Henry Constantine Richter (June 7, 1821-March 16, 1902), lithographer; J. Gould's The Birds of Australia Supplement (1868), Plate 72, opposite page 143: Public Domain via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/72/mode/1up

Cast at the British Museum, described in 1891 by English geologist Richard Lydekker, was made from right distal tibiotarsus fossil of extinct pygmy cassowary (Casuarius lydekkeri) held in Australian Museum in Sydney, New South Wales; 1872 photo by Australian photographer Charles Percy Pickering (1825-September 1908): State Library of New South Wales, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SLNSW_479514_11_Australian_Museum_SH_564.jpg

For further information:

Dawson, Lyndall. 1 August 1985. "Marsupial Fossils From Wellington Caves, New South Wales: The Historic and Scientific Significance of the Collections in the Australian Museum, Sydney." Records of the Australian Museum, vol. 37, issue 2: 55-69. Sydney, Australia: The Australian Museum. DOI:10.3853/j.0067-1975.37.1985.
Available @ https://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/journals/17640/335_complete.pdf

Gould, John. 1868. "Casuarius Bennetti, Gould. Bennett's Cassowary." The Birds of Australia. Supplement: pages 143-144, Plates 72-73. London, England: Printed for the Author by Taylor and Francis.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/birdsAustraliasSuppGoul#page/72/mode/1up

Lydekker, Richard. 1891. "Casuarius, sp." Catalogue of the Fossil Birds in the British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road S.W.: 353-354. London, England: Printed by Taylor and Francis for the British Museum (Natural History).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8390136

Mahoney, J.A.; and W.D.L. (William David Lindsay) Ride. 1975. "Index to the Genera and Species of Fossil Mammalia Described From Australia and New Guinea Between 1838 and 1968 (Including Citations of Type Species and Primary Type Specimens)." Western Australian Museum Special Publication No. 6. Perth, Australia: Printed for the Trustees of the Western Australian Museum by the Government Printer.
Available @ http://museum.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/INDEX%20TO%20THE%20GENERA%20AND%20SPECIES%20OF%20FOSSIL%20MAMMALIA%20DESCRIBED%20FROM%20AUSTRALIA%20AND%20NEW%20GUINEA%20BETWEEN%20FROM%201838%20AND%201968.pdf

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 June 2016. "Southern Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: Australian Big Bird." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/southern-cassowary-natural-history.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 June 2016. "Dwarf Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: New Guinean Little Bird." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/dwarf-cassowary-natural-history.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 June 2016. "Northern Cassowary Natural History Illustrations: New Guinean Big Bird." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/northern-cassowary-natural-history.html

Miller, Alden H. (Holmes). 19 June 1962. "The History and Significance of the Fossil Casuarius lydekkeri." Records of the Australian Museum, vol. XXV, no. 10: 235-238. Sydney, Australia: The Australian Museum. DOI:10.3853/j.0067-1975.25.1962.662
Available @ https://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/journals/17417/662_complete.pdf

Rich, P.V. (Patricia Vickers); Michael Plane; and Natalie Schroeder. June 1988. "A Pygmy Cassowary (Casuarius lydekkeri) From Late Pleistocene Bog Deposits at Pureni, Papua New Guinea." Journal of Australian Geology & Geophysics, vol. 10, no. 4: 377-389.
Available @ https://d28rz98at9flks.cloudfront.net/81234/Jou1988_v10_n4_p377.pdf

"The Recently Extinct Plants and Animals Database Extinct Birds: Casuarius lydekkeri." Cubits.org.
Available @ http://cubits.org/theextinctioncubit/db/extinctbirds/view/91089/

Rothschild, Walter, Hon. 1911. "On the Former and Present Distribution of the So-Called Ratite or Ostrich-like Birds With Certain Deductions and a Description of a New Form by C.W. Andrew: 17. C. lydekkeri." Verhandlungen des V. Internationalen Ornithologen-Kongresses in Berlin 30. Mai bis 4. Juni 1910: 162. Berlin, Germany: Deutsche Ornithologische Gesellschaft, 1911.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32626719