Passer predomesticus
Encyclopedia
Passer predomesticus is a fossil
passerine
bird in the sparrow
family Passeridae. First described in 1962, it is known from two premaxilla
ry (upper jaw) bones found in a middle Pleistocene
layer of the Oumm-Qatafa cave in Palestine
. The premaxillaries resemble those of the House
and Spanish Sparrow
s, but differ in having a deep groove instead of a crest on the lower side. Israeli paleontologist Eitan Tchernov, who described the species, and others have considered it to be close to the ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows, but molecular data point to an earlier origin of modern sparrow species. Occurring in a climate Tchernov described as similar to but rainier than that in Palestine today, it was considered by Tchernov as a "wild" ancestor of the modern sparrows which have a commensal
association with humans, although its presence in Oumm-Qatafa cave may indicate that it was associated with humans.
ry bones in the collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
. The bones were described by Israeli palaeontologist Eitan Tchernov in 1962 and reviewed by South African zoologist Miles Markus two years later. Tchernov did not unambiguously identify a type specimen and his paper was said by Robert M. Mengel, the editor of The Auk
, to contain "many troublesome lapses and contradictions". In 1975, French palaeontologist Cécile Mourer-Chauviré reported on fossil sparrows from a cave at Saint-Estève-Janson
in southeastern France, which could not be identified as either P. predomesticus or the House Sparrow
(Passer domesticus). Because no premaxillae were found, the bones could not be distinguished from those of the House Sparrow.
Tchernov argued that the House Sparrow and related species have undergone considerable morphological
changes in adapting to a commensal
relationship with humans, with the beak becoming longer and narrower. He wrote that P. predomesticus was intermediate between the House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow
(Passer hispaniolensis), and suggested that it may be a primitive relative of the ancestor of the House Sparrow that did not become dependent on humans. In a 1984 paper, Tchernov suggested that the period in which the House Sparrow and P. predomesticus could have separated was the Würm glaciation 70,000–10,000 years ago. Markus found that the fossil species was closest to living House Sparrows from Palestine and to the Great Sparrow (P. motitensis), and considered that the House Sparrow evolved in Africa. In a 1977 account of the evolution of the House Sparrow, American zoologists Richard F. Johnston and William J. Klitz considered that the House Sparrow evolved with the beginning of agriculture, dating any fossils that could even be assigned to the common ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows as more recent than P. predomesticus. In his 1988 work The Sparrows, British ornithologist J. Denis Summers-Smith
considered that P. predomesticus was roughly contemporary with the common ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows and that all present-day Palaearctic Passer species evolved later. Drawing on more recent studies of molecular data, Ted R. Anderson stated in his 2006 Biology of the Ubiquitous House Sparrow that all Passer species have a long evolutionary history, with speciation
possibly occurring as early as the Miocene
.
(Passer melanurus), and Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
(Passer diffusus), this crest is more poorly developed, and they may even have a shallow groove at the front of the premaxilla, not nearly as well-developed as the groove in P. predomesticus. In P. predomesticus, the premaxilla has a maximum width of 8 millimetre (0.31496062992126 in) and the length from the tip of the premaxilla to the back of the nasal bone
s is 12 millimetre (0.47244094488189 in).
(middle Pleistocene
, probably more than 400,000 years old) layer E1 of the Oumm-Qatafa cave in Wadi Khareitoun near Bethlehem
. In 1984, however, Tchernov wrote that P. predomesticus was about 140,000 years old, from the Yabrudian. Layer E1 contained remains of about 40 bird species, including a premaxilla Tchernov described as a precursor of the Dead Sea Sparrow
(Passer moabiticus) and a tarsometatarsus
and humerus
tentatively allied with the House Sparrow. An undetermined Acheulean layer of the same cave also contained fossils Tchernov described as precursors of both the House and Spanish Sparrows.
Although interpretations of the palaeoclimate at Oumm-Qatafa have differed, Tchernov suggested that the deposits are from a Mediterranean climate
, although one rainier than that today. Tchernov considered P. predomesticus a "wild" sparrow, but Anderson considered that the occurrence of P. predomesticus and the other Passer fossils in Oumm-Qatafa indicates that these species lived in association with early Palaeolithic humans.
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
passerine
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird in the sparrow
Sparrow
The sparrows are a family of small passerine birds, Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a genus of the family, Passer...
family Passeridae. First described in 1962, it is known from two premaxilla
Premaxilla
The incisive bone is the portion of the maxilla adjacent to the incisors. It is a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the jaws of many animals, usually bearing teeth, but not always. They are connected to the maxilla and the nasals....
ry (upper jaw) bones found in a middle Pleistocene
Middle Pleistocene
The Middle Pleistocene, more specifically referred to as the Ionian stage, is a period of geologic time from ca. 781 to 126 thousand years ago....
layer of the Oumm-Qatafa cave in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. The premaxillaries resemble those of the House
House Sparrow
The House Sparrow is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow occurs naturally in most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia...
and Spanish Sparrow
Spanish Sparrow
The Spanish Sparrow or Willow Sparrow is a passerine bird of the sparrow family Passeridae. It is found in the Mediterranean region and southwest and central Asia...
s, but differ in having a deep groove instead of a crest on the lower side. Israeli paleontologist Eitan Tchernov, who described the species, and others have considered it to be close to the ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows, but molecular data point to an earlier origin of modern sparrow species. Occurring in a climate Tchernov described as similar to but rainier than that in Palestine today, it was considered by Tchernov as a "wild" ancestor of the modern sparrows which have a commensal
Commensalism
In ecology, commensalism is a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral...
association with humans, although its presence in Oumm-Qatafa cave may indicate that it was associated with humans.
Taxonomy
The known material of Passer predomesticus consists of two premaxillaPremaxilla
The incisive bone is the portion of the maxilla adjacent to the incisors. It is a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the jaws of many animals, usually bearing teeth, but not always. They are connected to the maxilla and the nasals....
ry bones in the collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
. The bones were described by Israeli palaeontologist Eitan Tchernov in 1962 and reviewed by South African zoologist Miles Markus two years later. Tchernov did not unambiguously identify a type specimen and his paper was said by Robert M. Mengel, the editor of The Auk
The Auk
The Auk is a quarterly journal and the official publication of the American Ornithologists' Union, having been continuously published by that body since 1884. The journal contains articles relating scientific studies of the anatomy, behavior, and distribution of birds. The journal is named for the...
, to contain "many troublesome lapses and contradictions". In 1975, French palaeontologist Cécile Mourer-Chauviré reported on fossil sparrows from a cave at Saint-Estève-Janson
Saint-Estève-Janson
Saint-Estève-Janson is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Population:-References:*...
in southeastern France, which could not be identified as either P. predomesticus or the House Sparrow
House Sparrow
The House Sparrow is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow occurs naturally in most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia...
(Passer domesticus). Because no premaxillae were found, the bones could not be distinguished from those of the House Sparrow.
Tchernov argued that the House Sparrow and related species have undergone considerable morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
changes in adapting to a commensal
Commensalism
In ecology, commensalism is a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral...
relationship with humans, with the beak becoming longer and narrower. He wrote that P. predomesticus was intermediate between the House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow
Spanish Sparrow
The Spanish Sparrow or Willow Sparrow is a passerine bird of the sparrow family Passeridae. It is found in the Mediterranean region and southwest and central Asia...
(Passer hispaniolensis), and suggested that it may be a primitive relative of the ancestor of the House Sparrow that did not become dependent on humans. In a 1984 paper, Tchernov suggested that the period in which the House Sparrow and P. predomesticus could have separated was the Würm glaciation 70,000–10,000 years ago. Markus found that the fossil species was closest to living House Sparrows from Palestine and to the Great Sparrow (P. motitensis), and considered that the House Sparrow evolved in Africa. In a 1977 account of the evolution of the House Sparrow, American zoologists Richard F. Johnston and William J. Klitz considered that the House Sparrow evolved with the beginning of agriculture, dating any fossils that could even be assigned to the common ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows as more recent than P. predomesticus. In his 1988 work The Sparrows, British ornithologist J. Denis Summers-Smith
J. Denis Summers-Smith
James Denis Summers-Smith is a British ornithologist and mechanical engineer, a specialist both in sparrows and industrial tribology....
considered that P. predomesticus was roughly contemporary with the common ancestor of the House and Spanish Sparrows and that all present-day Palaearctic Passer species evolved later. Drawing on more recent studies of molecular data, Ted R. Anderson stated in his 2006 Biology of the Ubiquitous House Sparrow that all Passer species have a long evolutionary history, with speciation
Speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or 'cladogenesis,' as opposed to 'anagenesis' or 'phyletic evolution' occurring within lineages...
possibly occurring as early as the Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
.
Description
Premaxillae, the only bones from which Passer predomesticus is known, are generally relatively easy to determine in birds. Tchernov found that the two premaxillae of P. predomesticus most closely resembled the House and Spanish Sparrows, but were distinct from either. In P. predomesticus, there is a central, longitudinal groove with raised margins running along the lower (ventral) side of the premaxilla. In contrast, the House and Spanish Sparrows have a narrow crest in this position, which is more prominent in the House Sparrow. In the Great Sparrow, Cape SparrowCape Sparrow
The Cape Sparrow or Mossie is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae. Brightly coloured and distinctive, it is coloured grey, brown, and chestnut, with some black and white markings on the male...
(Passer melanurus), and Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
The Southern Grey-headed Sparrow is a passerine bird of the sparrow family Passeridae. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies of the Grey-headed Sparrow. It is found in savanna and woodland in Angola and Zambia down to South Africa....
(Passer diffusus), this crest is more poorly developed, and they may even have a shallow groove at the front of the premaxilla, not nearly as well-developed as the groove in P. predomesticus. In P. predomesticus, the premaxilla has a maximum width of 8 millimetre (0.31496062992126 in) and the length from the tip of the premaxilla to the back of the nasal bone
Nasal bone
The nasal bones are two small oblong bones, varying in size and form in different individuals; they are placed side by side at the middle and upper part of the face, and form, by their junction, "the bridge" of the nose.Each has two surfaces and four borders....
s is 12 millimetre (0.47244094488189 in).
Distribution
According to Tchernov's 1962 paper, Passer predomesticus was found in the middle AcheuleanAcheulean
Acheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains...
(middle Pleistocene
Middle Pleistocene
The Middle Pleistocene, more specifically referred to as the Ionian stage, is a period of geologic time from ca. 781 to 126 thousand years ago....
, probably more than 400,000 years old) layer E1 of the Oumm-Qatafa cave in Wadi Khareitoun near Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
. In 1984, however, Tchernov wrote that P. predomesticus was about 140,000 years old, from the Yabrudian. Layer E1 contained remains of about 40 bird species, including a premaxilla Tchernov described as a precursor of the Dead Sea Sparrow
Dead Sea Sparrow
The Dead Sea Sparrow , as its name suggests, is a breeding bird around the River Jordan, Dead Sea, and into Iraq, Iran and western Afghanistan. Breeding recorded in Cyprus but is probably extinct there now...
(Passer moabiticus) and a tarsometatarsus
Tarsometatarsus
The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is found in the lower leg of certain tetrapods, namely birds.It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsal and metatarsal bones...
and humerus
Humerus
The humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow....
tentatively allied with the House Sparrow. An undetermined Acheulean layer of the same cave also contained fossils Tchernov described as precursors of both the House and Spanish Sparrows.
Although interpretations of the palaeoclimate at Oumm-Qatafa have differed, Tchernov suggested that the deposits are from a Mediterranean climate
Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate is the climate typical of most of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, and is a particular variety of subtropical climate...
, although one rainier than that today. Tchernov considered P. predomesticus a "wild" sparrow, but Anderson considered that the occurrence of P. predomesticus and the other Passer fossils in Oumm-Qatafa indicates that these species lived in association with early Palaeolithic humans.