PHALACROCORACIDAE REICHENBACH, 1849

Worthy, Trevor H., 2011, Descriptions and phylogenetic relationships of a new genus and two new species of Oligo-Miocene cormorants (Aves: Phalacrocoracidae) from Australia, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 163 (1), pp. 277-314 : 283

FAMILY PHALACROCORACIDAE REICHENBACH, 1849 :

SHAGS AND CORMORANTS

The following fossil taxa are referred to Phalacrocoracidae rather than other pelecaniform families ( Pelecanidae , Fregatidae , Sulidae , Anhingidae ) by the following unique combination of characters: (1) humerus with a deep, rather than shallow, fossa pneumotricipitalis ventralis; (2) humeral proc. flexorius with equal or greater prominence than the epicondylus ventralis, not less; (3) humeral proc. supracondylaris dorsalis located distal to the proximal margin of the condylus dorsalis (exception: Nambashag microglaucus gen. et sp. nov. is primitive for this character); (4) ulna with the tuber. collateralis ventralis elongate and distinctly separated from the cotylar margin; (5) carpometacarpus with the ventral rim of the trochlea carpalis ventralis joining the shaft markedly distal to the proc. pisiformis; (6) coracoid with the protuberant boss on the cranial margin of the facies artic. sternalis dorsalis occupying no more than half the total width of the articular facet; and (7) femur with the tuber. gastrocnemialis lateralis elongate and distinctly separated from the trochlea fibularis. Phalacrocoracids are also diagnosed by the following additional characters that were not assessable in the fossil material at hand: premaxillae with rostral grooves extending to near the tip, os lacrimales fused to the os frontales, large fonticuli cranioorbitales in the caudal walls of the orbits, and os palatines only partly or not fused medially.