| Fossil records for the family |
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Cassowaries and Allies |
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Dromaius ater King Island Emu
Vieillot 1817
Holocene of King Island, off se South Australia
Primary materials: Complete skeleton
James C. Greenway, Jr.,
Extinct and vanishing birds of the world, second edition
(1967)
Dover Publications, Inc., New York
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Dromaius baudinianus Kangaroo
Island Emu
Parker 1984
Holocene of Kangaroo Island, off se South Australia
Primary materials: Holotype: complete adult left tarsometatarsus
Secondary materials: Paratypes: many other bones amongst which crania, vertebrae, ribs,
coracoscapula, sterna, humeri, incomplete pelvis, femora, tibiotarsi, fibulae,
tarsometatarsi, phalanx pedes, part of the synsacrum
Shane A. Parker,
The extinct Kangaroo Island Emu, a hitherto unrecognized species
Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 104 (1984): 19-22
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The Tasmanian Emu is considered by many to have been a
subspecies of the extant species of Emu, D. novaehollandiae. But Tasmania
has been isolated from mainland Australia since the Miocene, so it is more than likely
that this flightless bird was a full species.
It went extinct at the end of the nineteenth century. |
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Dromaius diemenesis
Le Souef 1903
Holocene of Tasmania, off se Australia
Primary materials: two specimens British Museum, one specimen Frankfurt Museum
James C. Greenway, Jr.,
Extinct and vanishing birds of the world, second edition
(1967)
Dover Publications, Inc., New York
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