Osteodontornis is an extinct seabird genus. It contains a single named species, Osteodontornis orri (Orr's bony-toothed bird, in literal translation of its scientific name), which was described quite exactly one century after the first species of the Pelagornithidae (Pelagornis miocaenus) was. O. orri was named after Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History paleontologist Phil C. Orr, for his recognition of the importance of the specimen.[1]
The bony-toothed or pseudotooth birds were initially believed to be related to albatrosses in the Procellariiformes, but actually they seem to be rather close relatives of either pelicans and storks, or of waterfowl, and are here placed in the order Odontopterygiformes to account for this uncertainty. Also, their internal taxonomy is not well-resolved. An earlier-described pseudotooth bird, Cyphornis magnus from Vancouver Island (Canada), was believed to be of Eocene age but is nowadays assumed to have lived about twenty million years ago in the Early Miocene, not too long before the Clarendonian (Middle/Late Miocene) O. orri. It may be that Osteodontornis is a junior synonym of Cyphornis.[2]
Osteodontornis is an extinct seabird genus. It contains a single named species, Osteodontornis orri (Orr's bony-toothed bird, in literal translation of...
this appears to be an error; if not of the contemporary North Pacific Osteodontornis, the specimen is better regarded as indeterminable. Given the distance...
of Carmanah Point, Vancouver Island, Canada) – may include OsteodontornisOsteodontornis (Early Miocene – Early Pliocene) – may belong in Cyphornis Pelagornis...
smaller points in addition as in Pelagornis' allopatric contemporary Osteodontornis cannot be ascertained. Its paroccipital process is not as markedly elongated...
orbital process of the prefrontal bone, unlike in the large Neogene Osteodontornis. Also, its paroccipital process is much elongated back- and downwards...
including fossils of a shearwater and the "pseudo-toothed" pelagornithid Osteodontornis, as well as a porpoise and fish, alongside fossils of palms. Howard...
considered related. Some of the largest pseudotooth birds have included, Osteodontornis of the late Miocene from the North Pacific, Gigantornis eaglesomei,...
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