earliest European record of a Stone-curlew (Charadriiformes, Burhinidae) from the late Oligocene of France

We describe novel material of a small fossil burhinid (Stone-curlew, thick-knee; Aves: Charadriiformes) from the late Oligocene (ca 23 Ma) of Coderet-Bransat in the Allier Basin of central France. This site is one of the renowned Saint-Gérand-le-Puy fossil localities, which have yielded thousands of fossil bird specimens. This is the first record of the Burhinidae to be described from Paleogene and Neogene deposits of Europe, and, together with the late Oligocene–early Miocene burhinid from Australia, are the earliest records worldwide. Although Genucrassum bransatensis gen. et sp. nov. differs from extant burhinids in some presumably plesiomorphic features of the humerus and carpometacarpus, we show that the postcranial elements considered here are remarkably uniform within Burhinidae even in late Oligocene taxa.