Here’s why:
- Gerald Mayr recently found a hoatzin fossil from the Cretacean in Namibia, in Africa (across the Atlantic Ocean!).
- This fossil is from an era where the Americas were water-locked: they had no land bridges or connections to other continents.
- Ergo, the hoatzin had to navigate across the Atlantic to reach South America (or vice-versa).
You know how they think it did it? A massive island of forest split off the continent and drifted across. By massive, think massive. Several miles across (The Hoatzin that crossed the ocean).
As always – here´s the paper: Hoatzins are no longer exclusively South American and once crossed an ocean.
And as usual, sign up for your free trial of the Amazoncam here and help us identify the Amazon wildlife that is on the photos taken by our 20 square kilometer grid of 78 cameras snapping away in the middle of the Amazon jungle. You can start practicing photo identification with our free illustrated plates of 172 Amazon Rainforest Animals.
by Kurt Holle