Tag Archives: Agapornis sp.

Not everyone in the Ice Age was a giant

Plovers Lake Cave [see photo below] in the Gauteng Province of South Africa is known for its tens of thousands of fossils from the Pleistocene era, the remains date from about 1 Ma. to 70000 years.

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Photo: Profberger

(under creative commons license (3.0))
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

Among the many fossils is a so-called quadrate of a very small Agapornis sp., closely related to the Rosy-faced Lovebird (Agapornis roseicollis (Viellot)), yet very much smaller, reaching a size of only about 12 cm.

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just a neat sketch of some Agapornids

It should be noted that another very small Agapornis sp. is known from another South African site, but this has been dated to be about 900000 years older, and furthermore these remains appear to have been lost.

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References: 

[1] Thomas A. Stidham: A small Pleistocene lovebird (Psittacidae: Agapornis) from Plovers Lake, South Africa. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie. Abhandlungen Band 256(1): 123-128. 2010

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edited: 23.05.2018