A NEW PLIOCENE STORK FROM NEBRASKA 



By 

 Lester L. Short, Jr. 



Systematic Ornithologist, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Honorary 

 Curator, Smithsonian Institution 



During 1956 Dr. Charles G. Sibley, visiting the University of 

 Nebraska campus, borrowed from the Nebraska State Museum a 

 number of avian fossils in that collection, with the intent of studying 

 them. Subsequently Dr. Sibley gave me permission to undertake 

 identification of the fossils, which included specimens from the 

 Oligocene to the Pleistocene of Nebraska. Through the kindness 

 of Dr. C. B. Schultz of the Nebraska State Museum and Dr. Sibley, 

 I have been able to borrow these fossils for continuation of my investi- 

 gations at the U. S. National Museum. One of them, a distal tibio- 

 tarsus, proves to represent a new genus and species of stork, which 

 is herein described and compared with fossil and extant storks. 



Family CICONIIDAE 



Subfamily Ciconiinae 



DISSOURODES, new genus 



Diagnosis. — Dissourodes is most similar to the modern genus 

 Dissoura Cabanis 1850, but distal tendinal groove opening in direct 

 contact with deepest part of intercondylar fossa, not separated from 

 it by a ridge between that opening and the intercondylar tubercle (as 

 it is in Dissoura). Internal condyle distally angles toward the open- 

 ing of the tendinal groove in Dissourodes. Dissourodes is much larger 

 than Dissoura episcopus. Other characteristics of the genus are those 

 given below for the type species Dissourodes milleri. 



DISSOURODES MILLERI, new species (fig. 1) 



Holotype. — Distal 162 mm. of left tibiotarsus, Nebraska State 

 Museum No. 5780. The distal 135 mm. of the tibiotarsus is complete 

 except for some surface abrasion, slight wear at various edges, and 

 a missing intercondylar tubercle. The proximal portion of the bone 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 149, NO. 9 



