Ongoing building on the new Felipe Ángeles Worldwide Airport (AIFA) close to Mexico Metropolis has led to the invention of an historic flamingo fossil egg, believed to be from the Pleistocene Epoch.
The discovering was uncovered at a depth of 31 cm (12 inches) at a building web site in Santa Lucía within the state of México, in keeping with the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past (INAH).
INAH officers mentioned the remarkably preserved egg is extremely uncommon. It’s only the second discovery of its type from the Phoenicopteridae flamingo household on the earth, and the primary within the Americas.
Often known as the newest ice age, the Pleistocene Epoch started 2.6 million years in the past, ending round 11,700 years in the past.
The presence of the egg means that the realm was the positioning of a shallow lake between 8,000 and 33,000 years in the past and that flamingos as soon as thrived in central Mexico, officers mentioned. Right now, the pink-feathered American flamingo species is especially present in South America, the Caribbean, the Yucatán Peninsula and the southeast U.S. coast.
The fossilized egg is 93.5 mm (3.7 inches) by 55.8 mm (2.2 inches).
A research carried out to find out what sort of animal laid the egg discovered the flamingo to be a match based mostly on its measurement, form and shell patterns. Different waterfowl similar to pelicans, cranes, geese, swans and the widespread loon have been dominated out.
The discovering “confirms that flamingos have been a part of the lake landscapes of Central Mexico, and that the lakes that made up the Basin of Mexico underwent a major variety of modifications,” INAH famous, “probably as a result of environmental affect derived from glaciations and intense volcanic exercise.”
With experiences from Reuters, Aristegui Noticias and INAH
