216
PACHYORNIS PONDEROSUS(HUTT.)
- Euryapteryx ponderosus Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst., p. 137 (1892).
This species is slightly smaller than P. elephantopus, the tarso-metatarsus varying from 8.25 to 8.0 inches, as opposed to from 9.4 to 9.25 in elephantopus; the tibio-tarsus varies from 18.5 to 18.6, as opposed to 24 to 24.1; femur, 10, as opposed to 13 to 11.8.
The skull can be distinguished by the processes at the hinder angles of the basi-sphenoid, which are higher and rounder in ponderosus, flatter and more elongated in elephantopus. Type: Hamilton.
Habitat: Middle Island, New Zealand.
Cast of egg in Tring Museum, taken from specimen in Otago Museum, dredged up in 1901 in the Molyneux River, also incomplete skeleton from Kapua Swamps.
PACHYORNIS INHABILISHUTT.
- Pachyornis inhabilis Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst. XXV, p. 11 (1893).
Differs from ponderosus by having the great inward expansion at the distal end of the tibio-tarsus. This expansion has induced some ornithologists to separate the species of Pachyornis into two genera—Euryapteryx and Pachyornis—but I do not think this expansion of sufficient importance to warrant generic separation.
Habitat: Middle Island, New Zealand.
PACHYORNIS VALGUS(HUTT.)
- Euryapteryx valgus Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst. XXV, p. 12 (1893).
This species is at once distinguishable from all others by the extraordinary internal expansion of the distal end of the tibio-tarsus. The tarso-metatarsus is 8.5 inches = 216 mm. in length and the proximal width 3.5 inches = 89 mm., and does not differ much from crassus except in the great proximal width, necessary to articulate with the distal internal expansion described above.
The type came from Enfield in New Zealand.
Habitat: Middle Island, New Zealand.
