Piscator tenuirostris is an extinct species of cormorant-like bird, the only known species in the genus Piscator.
Piscator tenuirostris is known from an incomplete rostrum, the anterior end of a premaxilla, found in Hordle, England, in formations dating to the Priabonian, the final age of the Eocene Epoch.[1] [2] This holotype is now at the British Museum.[3]
It was initially described by Colin Harrison and Cyril A. Walker in 1976, and placed in the family phalacrocoracidae.[4] It was placed in class Aves incertae sedis by Jiří Mlíkovský in 2002.
A similar sample was found in the Late Eocene-early Oligocene Jebel Qatrani Formation in Faiyum, Egypt, but whether this sample represents P. tenuirostris, another Piscator species, or a different phalacrocoracid is unknown.
Piscator was similar to the extant phalacrocoracidae, a piscivorous family of aquatic birds.[4] Remains were found in the Bracklesham Group in Hordle, England, which dates to the Priabonian, the last age of the Eocene epoch.[4]
The genus was introduced by Cyril A. Walker and Colin Harrison in 1976.[4] It was placed in class Aves incertae sedis by Jiří Mlíkovský in 2002.[2] The word piscator is Latin for "fisherman." Other fossils may also represent species in this genus, but they have not been described as such, with some residing in private collections.[4]
P. tenuirostris is the oldest discovered cormorant-like bird in the fossil record. It is the type specimen of its genus, and the only species of Piscator currently described.