Piscator tenuirostris

Piscator tenuirostris is an extinct species of cormorant-like bird in the genus Piscator.

Discovery
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. This holotype is now at the British Museum.

It was initially described by Colin Harrison and Cyril A. Walker in 1976, and placed in the family phalacrocoracidae. 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.

Taxonomy
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. Other samples, including some in private collections, represent prehistoric phalacrocoracids, but have not been described to more specific classifications.