Mexican Macaws (1 Viewer)

Lyndon L. Hargrave, 1970

Mexican Macaws: Comparative Osteology and Survey of Remains from the Southwest

Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 20

http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/595459/1/978-0-8165-0212-7-web.pdf

Fragment of the introduction:

The purpose of this paper is twofold, first to make possible the differentiation of the skeletal remains of the Military Macaw (Ara militaris) from those of the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), and second to review macaw remains recovered from archaeological sites. This paper is especially prepared for students of Southwestern archaeology because they are the ones who dig up macaw remains, who care for them in the field, who keep correlative field data for use in ethnological studies, and finally to whom may fall the task of determining economic values of macaws to the ancient inhabitants of now dead towns.

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This paper is also very interesting for the fact that it includes a partial skeleton (A0437) from Kiet Siel Pueblo tentatively named Ara wetmorei (p. 34-35):

"The macaw skeleton numbered A0437 is exceptional in several ways that can best be shown in a tabulation of species characters as compared to Ara militaris and Ara macao. This tabulation is based on 10 characters that are definitive as to species, 7 of which are manifested on skeletal elements of Ara militaris and Ara macao. These characters are compared to homologous characters of No. A0437, with the result that No. A0437 has (I) one character in common with Ara militaris, (2) three characters in common with Ara macao, and (3) six characters unlike either Ara militaris or Ara macao.

In addition to the 10 definitive characters used in this comparison, by inspection alone from its relative size and differently proportioned bones, A0437 is a small, stocky, big-headed, and long-billed macaw, and is thus unlike any specimen I have seen of either Ara militaris or Ara macao. Several possibilities for a logical solution for this problem exist.

From the diagnostic skeletal character differences between Ara militaris and Ara macao, as enumerated previously and listed in Table 3, the Macaw skeleton A0437 may be the remains of some other described and named Macaw not included in this study.

It is even conceivable that A0437 may be the remains of an unknown Macaw, in which case it would be a new species that appropriately should be named Ara wetmorei in recognition of Alexander Wetmore's contribution in identifying numerous archaeological bird bones from southwestern ruins."

It seems that no subsequent mention of this specimen is present in the literature.

What a good find, RSN !

Recently I asked Dr. Walter Boles, retired from the Australian Museum and author of the chapter on fossil parrots in the Joseph M. Forshaw, 2017 book Vanished and Vanishing Parrots Comstock Publishing Associates 350 pg. about this possible species:"

"I do not understand why you don’t spend a word on Ara “wetmorei” Hargrave, 1970, of course a Nomen Nudum, but possibly a new species from the Holocene of Arizona (according to Hargrave, 1970: Lyndon.L. Hargrave, 1970: Mexican Macaws, Comparative Osteology and Survey of Remains from the Southwest: The Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 20: 1-67

His answer was: "This omission of Ara wetmorei, unfortunately, was a lapse on my part. It certainly should have been mentioned. It is surprising that no one has followed up on the possibility that this might be a new fossil species. There seems to be little, if anything, in the literature following the original mention by Hargrave. The characters given in the text almost constitute a valid description.

It seems to me that everybody overlooked this possibly new species except RSN, good work!

Fred

It might be of interest that Lyndon Lane Hargrave lived fom 1896 to 1978. So it seems that he took his "Ara" into his own grave.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...ave-18961978/F1B8F0231C3CC2D4E3F08B30BE6C52A1

Melanie said:

So it seems that he took his "Ara" into his own grave.

Click to expand...

This is an interesting remark. Hargrave clearly mentioned that there are 20 bone elements and even some gray down. If we know where the specimen is located, to me it is not clear in what institution it is kept. I think, an ancient DNA study can solve the problem or perhaps it can be done by just morphology. But keep in mind, we are most probably talking about a captive birds, not originally occuring in Arizona but from Mexico, perhaps a hybrid (not very probably), or another artifact from captivity like captive breeding (also not very probably), also we do not know whether it is one bird or more. Only one bird makes it, in my opinion hard to make it a new species, where are the others? The Ara wetmorei problem is far from solved. But I certainly do not think he took his "Ara" to his own grave!!

We have to wait till someone takes up this challenge.

By the way, Hargrave was not a paleontologist, he was an archaeologist (who liked ornithology).

Fred