The Priabonian is, in the ICS 's geologic timescale , the latest age or the upper stage of the Eocene Epoch or Series . It spans the time between 37.71 and 33.9 Ma . The Priabonian is preceded by the Bartonian and is followed by the Rupelian , the lowest stage of the Oligocene .
17-463: Priabona , an extinct dipteran of Pipunculidae family, is named after Priabonian, the age of deposits from which this insect is known. The Priabonian Stage was introduced in scientific literature by Ernest Munier-Chalmas and Albert de Lapparent in 1893. The stage is named after the small hamlet of Priabona in the community of Monte di Malo , in the Veneto region of northern Italy . The base of
34-604: A fossil sand dollar found by Charles Darwin in 1834, Captain James Cook 's mamo , and two pheasants that once belonged to George Washington , now on loan to Mount Vernon in Virginia. The research collections of the MCZ are not open to the public. The Museum of Comparative Zoology was founded in 1859 through the efforts of zoologist Louis Agassiz ; the museum used to be referred to as "The Agassiz" after its founder. Agassiz designed
51-529: A diverse assemblage of insects. The insects and plants suggest a climate similar to modern Southeastern North America, with a number of taxa represented that are now found in the subtropics to tropics and confined to the Old World. When Priabona was described, the Florissant formation was considered to be Miocene in age, based on the flora and fauna preserved. Subsequent research and fossil descriptions permitted
68-591: A re-examined dating, and by 1985 the formation had been reassigned to an Oligocene age. Further refinement of the formation's age using radiometric dating of sanidine crystals has resulted in an age of 34 million years, which places the formation in the Late Eocene Priabonian stage. At the time of description the holotype specimen, number 3976 was deposited in the Museum of Comparative Zoology paleontology collections at Harvard University . Placement of
85-565: Is taken from Priabonian , the age of the Florissant Formation. P. florissantius has a body length of 4.5 millimetres (0.18 in), with the details of the head mostly indistinct. There appears to be a notch between the eyes which runs halfway up the rear-side of the head capsule. The wings of the holotype are 4.6 millimetres (0.18 in) and hyaline overall, with a darkening of the pterostigma . The femurs of P. florissantius are unique in that they have several darkened spines on
102-547: Is the Harvard Museum of Natural History . Harvard MCZ's collections consist of some 21 million specimens, of which several thousand are on rotating display at the public museum. In July 2021, Gonzalo Giribet , Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, was announced as the new director of the museum. Many of the exhibits in the public museum have not only zoological interest, but also historical significance. Past exhibits have included
119-567: The dipteran subfamily Nephrocerinae , within which it is one of only two genera . The genus contains a single described species , Priabona florissantius . Priabona is known from a single Late Eocene fossil from western North America. Priabona is known from a compression-impression fossil preserved in fine shale of the Florissant Formation in Colorado. The formation is composed of successive lake deposits which have preserved
136-727: The ICS timescale, and stratigraphers often use regional timescales as alternatives to the ICS timescale. The Priabonian overlaps for example the upper Johannian and lowers Aldingan stages of the Australian timescale or the upper Nanzian and lower Refugian stages of the Californian timescale. Other regional stages which are more or less coeval with the Priabonian include the Jacksonian of the southeastern US and Runangan of New Zealand . In biostratigraphy ,
153-460: The MCZ collections. Notable exhibits include whale skeletons , the largest turtle shell ever found (8 ft long), "the Harvard mastodon ", a 42-foot (13 m) long Kronosaurus skeleton, the skeleton of a dodo , and a coelacanth preserved in fluid. The two-story Great Mammal Hall was renovated in 2009 in celebration of the 150th anniversary of founding of the museum. Changing exhibitions in
170-735: The Priabonian Stage is at the first appearance of calcareous nannoplankton species Chiasmolithus oamaruensis (which forms the base of nanoplankton biozone NP18). An official GSSP was ratified in 2020, and was placed in the Alano di Piave section in Alano di Piave , Belluno , Italy . The top of the Priabonian Stage (the base of the Rupelian Stage and Oligocene Series) is at the extinction of foram genus Hantkenina . Sometimes local rock strata cannot be correlated in sufficient detail with
187-769: The Priabonian Stage is coeval with the Chadronian North American Land Mammal Age , the Headonian European Land Mammal Mega Zone (in more detail: with the Mammal Paleogene zones 17A through 20), parts of the Barrancan and Mustersan South American Land Mammal Ages and the Ulangochuian and Ergilian Asian Land Mammal Ages . Priabona florissantius Priabona is an extinct genus of big-headed flies in
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#1732848885166204-612: The collection to illustrate the variety and comparative relationships of animal life. Many female paleontologists, such as Elvira Wood , were involved in the early development of the museum. The Radcliffe Zoological Laboratory was created in 1894 when Radcliffe College rented a space on the fifth floor of the MCZ to convert into a women's laboratory. Prior to this acquisition, Radcliffe science laboratories were taught using inadequate facilities, converting spaces such as bathrooms in old houses into physics laboratories, in which Harvard professors often refused to teach. The laboratory space
221-449: The group has changed several times, with Nepherocerus Metanephrocerus Priabona and Protonephrocerus being placed in the pipunculid subfamily Nephrocerinae from 1948 until 2014. The placement of the tribe Protonephrocerini, containing Metanephrocerus and Protonephrocerus , was challenged in 2014 by Kehlmaier, Dierick and Skevington who suggested inclusion of the genera made Nephrocerinae paraphyletic . As such they elevated
238-654: The tenth department of the museum. The library is a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The museum publishes two journals: the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College , first published in 1869, and Breviora , first published in 1956. In contrast to numerous more modern museums, the Harvard Museum of Natural History has many hundreds of stuffed animals on display, from
255-473: The tribe Protonephrocerini to the subfamily rank as Protonephrocerinae, leaving only Nephrocerus and Priabona in Nephrocerinae. The species was originally placed into the genus Protonephrocerus by Frank M. Carpenter and F.M. Hull with their type description in 1939. The species was moved in 2014, based on a redescription of the type specimen, to the new genus Priabona . The generic epithet "Priabona"
272-609: The undersides and which have setae on the front and upper sides, a feature absent in Nephrocerus . Museum of Comparative Zoology The Museum of Comparative Zoology (formally the Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology and often abbreviated to MCZ ) is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts . It is one of three natural-history research museums at Harvard, whose public face
289-405: Was converted from an office or storage closet, and was sandwiched between other invertebrate storage rooms on the fifth floor. The museum has nine departments with research collections: Entomology , Herpetology , Ichthyology , Invertebrate Paleontology , Invertebrate Zoology , Mammalogy , Malacology , Ornithology , and Vertebrate Paleontology . The Ernst Mayr Library and its archives form
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