Centrornis majori (Malagasy Sheldgoose)

[another specialist]

Centrornis majori Andrews, 1897

Period: 8000 BCE - present (BCE = before common era = BC).

Holocene

taxonomicon.taxonomy.nl/Topic.aspx?id=811

[another specialist]

Centrornis majori
Andrews 1897
Pleistocene, subrecent of Madagascar
Primary materials: Type: tibiotarsus, femur, tarsometatarsus, coracoïdeum, metacarpus, scapula, sternum, humerus, ulna, radius, phalanx I

Kàlmàn Lambrecht,
Handbuch der Palaeornithologie
1024 p. (1933)
Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin

See also:
Pierce Brodkorb,
Catalogue of fossil birds. Part 2 (Anseriformes through Galliformes)
Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 8 (1964): 195-335

www.ornitaxa.com/SM/Fossil/FossilAnati.htm

[another specialist]

The prehistoric Madagascar Sheldgoose, Centrornis majori, the "Woodard"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose

[another specialist]

Extinct birds : an attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times : that is, within the last six or seven hundred years : to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction (1907)

[Peter]

The BMNH holds the collection made by Forsyth Major at ‘Sirabé.’ Andrews (1897) previously reported on most of the bird material from this collection and described several extinct species. The bones excavated by Forsyth Major were obtained from numerous sites, often from a depth of 3.6 to 4.5 m. The stratigraphic sequence appears to have been a surface layer, 1.5 to 1.8 m deep, of rich black earth, generally containing little bird bone, followed by coarse gravel and calcareous conglomerate with broken bone. The principal fossil-bearing layer was found below the conglomerate in a marly deposit (Andrews 1897). Several bone samples from the site have yielded Radiocarbon dates using AMS techniques: Alopochen sirabensis (UA 142) - 19,250 ± 110 yr BP; A. sirabensis (UA 119) - 17,100 ± 90 yr BP; the extinct shelgoose Centrornis majori (UA 214) - 17,370 ± 90 yr BP; and Helmeted Guineafowl Numida meleagris (UA 322) - 90 ± 60 yr BP (Table 1).
...
The explanation for the disappearance of numerous species of animals on the Central High Plateau is not as clear as in the case of Ampoza. Pollen data and radiocarbon dating based on a core taken in Lake Kavitaha, not far from Ampasambazimba, indicate that starting in the oldest portion of the core (1490 ± 60 yr BP) there was a distinct reduction in woody pollen and a proportional increase in grass pollen (Burney 1987a). Whether these shifts are associated with natural environmental change or human modifications of the local environment is open to question. However, soon thereafter, approximately 1400 yr BP, the amount of charcoal in the samples increased substantially, and this probably signals the start of anthropogenic environmental change. Supportive radiocarbon dates associated with archaeological sites on the Central High Plateau indicate that the first signs of human modification of the region date from the 7th-century, settlements probably were established in the 12th-century, and that there was a significant augmentation in anthropogenic modifications of the environment for agricultural or pastoral purposes in the 18th-century (Wright et al. 1992). As far as aquatic ecosystems are concerned, the major habitat for waterbirds, the principal anthropogenic influence probably would have been conversion of marshes and lake ecosystems into rice fields. The first evidence of the cultivation of rice on the Central High Plateau is from the 15th-century (Wetterstrom & Wright 1992). Certainly hunting pressure on waterbirds and the raiding of nests for eggs would have commenced at an earlier date. There appears to be no textual evidence from early European visitors to Madagascar that large and notable waterfowl, such as the enormous Centrornis majori, still were in existence on the island during the 16th and 17th centuries (e.g. Flacourt 1658). However, this negative evidence cannot be used to say that these birds already were extinct at the time.

Goodman, SM (1999). Holocene bird subfossils from the sites of Ampasambazimba, Antsirabe and Ampoza, Madagascar: Changes in the avifauna of south central Madagascar over the past few millennia. In: Adams, N.J. & Slotow, R.H. (eds) Proc. 22 Int. Ornithol. Congr., Durban. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa. pp. 3071–3083. (www.int-ornith-union.org/files/proceedings/durban/Symposium/S50/S50.4.htm)