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Claws of avian raptors have been used to make symbolic objects and decorations in many geographic regions and cultures; thus, their species identification increases our ability to draw more in‐depth conclusions from zooarcheological materials. It is the first ever manual for identification of ungual phalanges of European Accipitridae. It can be used in conjunction with a previously published manual for owls and falcons as well as independently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an articulated partial leg of an Oligocene bird. It is one of the smallest avian fossils ever recorded. Its slender and exceptionally short tarsometatarsus, hallux as long as the tarsometatarsus and stout moderately curved claws agree with stem-group Apodidae (swifts), stem-group Trochilidae (hummingbirds), and stem-group Upupidae/Phoeniculidae (hoopoes/woodhoopoes). Unfortunately, due to the poor preservation of the specimen its more precise affinities remain unresolved. The specimen differs in many details from all other tiny Palaeogene birds and therefore most probably it represents a new taxon but it is too fragmentary to describe it. It is just the twelfth avian fossil from the Oligocene marine deposits of the Outer Carpathians and Central Palaeogene Basin — a huge area that covers south-eastern Poland, north-eastern Czech Republic and northern Slovakia — and therefore it adds to our very limited knowledge on the avifauna of that region. The remains of land birds from Jamna Dolna and other sites of the region can be attributed to the general sea level fall at that time, which led to limitation of the connection with the open ocean and resulted in many shallow shoals, temporary islands and exposed dry land areas along the coast.

This paper is the first of two scheduled publications for this project. It contains a dichotomous key to the identification of the ungual phalanges of European owls and falcons; the second part will contain accipitrids. The manual(s) will facilitate the work of zooarchaeologists and palaeontologists, especially since comparative specimens in osteological collections are often difficult to access and/or incomplete. This, in turn, will indirectly contribute to a more in‐depth interpretation of zooarcheological materials, because bird talons were used to produce symbolic objects and decorations in different archeological periods and in various geographical areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upupiformes is the avian clade including extant hoopoes (Upupidae) and wood hoopoes (Phoeniculidae). Upupiform birds are abundantly represented in some Eocene fossil sites and are also known from early Miocene localities, but the fossil record in between is surprisingly scant. This gap of over 25 million years is bridged by two skeletons from the early Oligocene of Poland. One of the fossils is described as a new species, ?Laurillardia smoleni, sp. nov., the other is tentatively referred to Laurillardia munieri Flot, 1891. We detail that these stem group Upupiformes are more closely related to the crown group than are the Eocene Messelirrisoridae. The specimens show that very small upupiform birds coexisted with passerines (Passeriformes) for at least ten million years and challenge previous hypotheses that the arrival of passerines in Europe led to the demise of small non-passeriform arboreal birds. It remains elusive, why small upupiform birds became extinct in the Northern Hemisphere. Even though these insectivorous birds may not have found enough food after the emergence of cold Northern Hemispheric winters, it is an open question why very small-sized upupiform birds do not occur in the tropical regions of Asia but are today restricted to Africa south of the Sahara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a bird carcass-monitoring experiment carried out in a limestone cave and its immediate vicinity in southern Poland for almost a quarter of a century. Some specimens deposited outside the cave were preserved almost intact, others were only a little weathered. Soft tissues and remnants of feathers were preserved in some of the samples inside the cave. Stages of bone modifications that can occur in a cave have been distinguished and illustrated for the first time. Also, bird bones from owl pellets have been used in a carcass-monitoring experiment for the first time. Bone modifications in the form of wrinkling, bending and/or collapsing of the bone surface were recorded only on the bones of birds that decomposed inside the cave, and not on bones that had been isolated from owl pellets prior to their deposition in the cave. Therefore, it is postulated that avian - and possibly also small mammal - bones that have been defleshed, either by people or animals, have a greater chance to survive and fossilize than bones deposited as complete carcasses in a cave. This agrees with the generally accepted notion that larger assemblages of small vertebrates in caves are usually the result of predator accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leg bones of a small passeriform bird are described from the early Oligocene (29 Mya) of Poland. The specimen is the earliest complete passerine leg with elements in articulation described so far, and increases the known diversity of the very scanty records of the oldest European passeriforms. In general proportions the leg bones resemble those of Luscinia svecica and other species that live in shrubs. Assignment to a family within the passerines is not possible because of the incompleteness of the fossil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is predicted to cause substantial habitat rearrangements, with the most severe effects expected to occur in high-latitude biomes. However, one major uncertainty is whether species will be able to shift their ranges to keep pace with climate-driven environmental changes. Many recent studies on mammals have shown that past range contractions have been associated with local extinctions rather than survival by habitat tracking. Here, we have used an interdisciplinary approach that combines ancient DNA techniques, coalescent simulations and species distribution modelling, to investigate how two common cold-adapted bird species, willow and rock ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus and Lagopus muta), respond to long-term climate warming. Contrary to previous findings in mammals, we demonstrate a genetic continuity in Europe over the last 20 millennia. Results from back-casted species distribution models suggest that this continuity may have been facilitated by uninterrupted habitat availability and potentially also the greater dispersal ability of birds. However, our predictions show that in the near future, some isolated regions will have little suitable habitat left, implying a future decrease in local populations at a scale unprecedented since the last glacial maximum., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)