The extinct large cranes of the North-West palaearctic

Bones of a large crane, comparable in size with the Sarus Crane, Grus antigone, have been found in the Late Pleistocene of Britain and France, neolithic of Germany, and Bronze and Iron Age sites in Britain. They occur together with bones of the Common Crane, G. grus. On zoogeographical grounds these are unlikely to be referable to G. antigone, and the name G. primigenia Milne-Edwards 1896 is available for the species.G. melitensis, a crane of similar large size from the Eemian interglacial of Malta differs in having a narrower tendinal bridge on the distal tibiotarsus, and a small slender coracoid that suggests that the powers of flight may have been reduced. On present evidence it has no link with the previous species other than that of size.