Bird bone remains consisting of 2477 skeletal fragments belonging to at least 488 bird individuals of 116 taxa are described, the great majority of them identified to the species level. They are characteristic of various habitats and all European climatic zones. They accumulated in the Late Glacial period of the Vistulian and the Holocene. 11 bird taxa have not been recorded from Poland as fossils.
We describe a new avian taxon (Sanshuiornis zhangi gen. et sp. nov.) from Middle Eocene black oil shales in the Huayong Formation of Guangdong Province, south China. The specimen consists of a distal tibiotarsus and a complete foot with tarsometatarsus and pedal digits in articulation. A preliminary phylogenetic analysis does not resolve the affinities of the fossil, but the bones show resemblances to some “ciconiiform” birds. The peculiar hypotarsus morphology, which is block−like and exhibits four cristae, resembles that of the early Eocene Rhynchaeites, which is a stem group representative of the Threskiornithidae. The new Chinese fossil has, however, proportionally longer legs than Rhynchaeites and its phylogenetic affinities probably cannot be resolved without further material.
Fluvioviridavis platyrhamphus, a new genus and species of short-legged landbirds from the Lower Eocene Green fiver Formation (Wyoming, USA) is described. The taxon is known from a single, nearly complete and slightly dissociated skeleton which was made the paratype of the putative oilbird Prefica nivea Olson, 1987 (Steatornithidae, Caprimulgiformes). Apart from the greatly abbreviated tarsometatarsus, Fluvioviridavis especially corresponds to recent oilbirds in the unusually wide proximal end of the humerus. However, in other features, e.g., the shape of its much longer beak, the Eocene taxon is clearly distinguished from the recent oilbird (Steatornis). In contrast, Prefica nivea agrees with Steatornis in the shape of the mandible but differs in the much narrower proximal end of the humerus. At present, no derived character convincingly supports a classification of F. platyrhamphus into any of the higher avian taxa. The species is here classified 'order and family incertae sedis'. An isolated skull from the Middle Eocene of Messel (Hessen, Germany) is tentatively assigned to ?Fluvioviridavis sp., and associated bones from the Lower Eocene London Clay of Walton-on-the-Naze (Essex, England) might also be related to the genus Fluvioviridavis.