Late miocene buttonquails (Charadriiformes, turnicidae) from the temperate zone of Eurasia

Abstract

The evolutionary history of the extant buttonquails (family Turnicidae) is poorly known. The Oligocene stem representatives of the family differ significantly morphologically from the extant members of Turnicidae and presumably had different ecology and lifestyle. Until now, the only pre-Pleistocene record of the crown-group buttonquails was a find in the Pliocene of South Africa— within the modern distribution range of the group. Here we describe remains of the modern-type Turnicidae from the late Miocene of Hungary, Southern Ukraine, and Northern Kazakhstan. These finds show that Turnicidae, which nowadays are restricted to the subtropical and tropical regions, had much wider geographical distribution in the late Miocene. This range expansion might have been related to the wide spread of the open and arid landscapes during the late Miocene. Importantly, all remains described herein are morphologically similar to the living genus Ortyxelos, which has been considered primitive and now inhabits arid landscapes in Africa. The genus Ortyxelos is thus likely yet another (along with ostrich and some mammals) taxon which now inhabits sub-Saharan Africa, but once had a much wider distribution across Eurasia.