Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of South American Earth Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsames Answer to reply to C. Acosta Hospitaleche and M. Reguero (2020) additional Pelagornithidae remains from Seymour Island, Antarctica Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche a,* , Marcelo Reguero a,b a División Paleontología de Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/nº, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina, CONICET b Instituto Antártico Argentino, 25 de Mayo 1143, San Martín, Argentina We feel compelled to briefly respond to the reply of Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina (2020) about our contribution: Additional Pe- lagornithidae remains from Seymour Island, Antarctica. The material IAA-PV 823 they question is housed in the recognized repository of the Instituto Antártico Argentino, and available for reviews, which is im- portant to replicate or refute any statement about its assignment. However, Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina have chosen to give their opinion without the prior examination of the fossil. In our experience, direct observation of the fossil is required to avoid an erroneous in- terpretation of the structures during a character survey. Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina (2020) repeatedly incur in the practice of trying to study materials only through published images, using pictures of fishes taken from the bibliography, instead of the di- rect comparisons with the materials analyzed by Tercerie et al. (2019). Again, the assignment comparing pictures of the material under study with pictures of the alleged equivalent fossil is not the best choice and attempt against a healthy scientific practice. We believe that it is not worth re-describing the material here. Instead, we give a pair of examples to illustrate the mistakes they make when describing materials without examining materials. First, the al- veoli described by Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina (2020) are broken portions of the bone; they could have corroborated it magnifying the area with a binocular microscope. Also, the lateral foramen that they assume is covered by not removed sediment, is not present at all in the material. Even Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina (2020) recognize the difficulties they have to verify some features based only on the avail- able pictures. Nevertheless, they decide to risk and continue with their review, assigning the material to a perciform. After finding many dif- ferences in size, general configuration, and other particular features with Mesetaichthys, they assign IAA-PV 823 to an indeterminate gem- pylid. According to them, a family reported for the Eocene of Italy and England and the Oligocene of Rumania., and not in the Southern Hemisphere. Something we cannot avoid notice is that Chávez Hoffmeister and Urbina (2020) deliberately ignored the obvious com- parison with other previously reported Antarctic Pelagornithidae, and with the innumerable Eocene Pelagornithidae known around the world. Anyway, and beyond this, we are studying new and more complete remains from the Eocene of Seymour/Marambio Island, collected during the last field trip to Antarctica. This new material could help to better understand the morphological variations of the Antarctic pseudo- toothed birds and this particular situation. Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. References Chávez Hoffmeister, M., Urbina, P., 2020. Reply to C. Acosta Hospitaleche and M. Reguero (2020) Additional Pelagornithidae Remains from Seymour Island, Antarctica. Tercerie, S., Bearez, P., Pruvost, P., Bailly, N., Vignes-Lebbe, R., 2019. Osteobase. World Wide Web Electronic Publication. osteobase.mnhn.Fr, Version January 2019. Data Retrieved March 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102645 Received 2 May 2020; Accepted 10 May 2020 * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: acostacaro@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar (C. Acosta Hospitaleche), regui@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar (M. Reguero). Journal of South American Earth Sciences xxx (xxxx) xxxx 0895-9811/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche and Marcelo Reguero, Journal of South American Earth Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102645