Coragyps occidentalis

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Coragyps occidentalis
Temporal range: Pleistocene - Early Holocene
Coragyps occidentalis.jpg
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Accipitriformes
Family: Cathartidae
Genus: Coragyps
Species:
†C. occidentalis
Binomial name
†Coragyps occidentalis
Miller, 1909

Coragyps occidentalis, the Pleistocene black vulture, is an extinct species of New World vulture that lived throughout North America during the Pleistocene. It seems to have evolved into the modern black vulture by decreasing in size during the last ice age.[1][2]

Description[]

This species did not differ much from the modern black vulture in most aspects except size; it was some 10–15% larger. It also had a relatively flatter and wider bill.[3] It filled the same ecological niche as the living form,[4]

The Pleistocene black vulture showed size variation much like the modern species, with southern populations smaller than those from the north. These populatiins areclassified as subspecies, with the larger northern populations known as Coragyps occidentalis occidentalis and the smaller populations known as C. o. mexicanus.[5] The southern birds were of the same size as present-day northern black vultures and can only be distinguished by their somewhat stouter tarsometatarsus and the flatter and wider bills, and even then only with any certainty if the location where the fossils were found is known.[6]

As a chronospecies[]

Well documented from fossil bones, the genus Coragyps gives a rare glimpse in the evolutionary dynamics of two chronospecies. The final stages of this evolutionary transformation must have been witnessed by humans: a subfossil bone of the extinct species was found in a Paleo Indian to Early Archaic (9000–8000 years BCE) midden at Five Mile Rapids near The Dalles, Oregon.[7] Fossil (or subfossil) black vultures cannot necessarily be attributed to the Pleistocene or the recent species without further information: the same size variation found in the living bird was also present in its larger prehistoric relative. As the Pleistocene and current black vultures form an evolutionary continuum rather than splitting into two or more lineages, some include the Pleistocene taxa in C. atratus.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ Howard, Hildegarde (1962). "Bird Remains from a Prehistoric Cave Deposit in Grant County, New Mexico" (PDF). Condor. 64 (3): 241–242. doi:10.2307/1365205. JSTOR 1365205. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Steadman, David W; Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin; Johnson, Eileen; Guzman, A. Fabiola (1994). "New Information on the Late Pleistocene Birds from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico" (PDF). Condor. 96 (3): 577–589. doi:10.2307/1369460. JSTOR 1369460. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
  3. ^ Fisher, Harvey L (1944). "The skulls of the Cathartid vultures" (PDF). Condor. 46 (6): 272–296. doi:10.2307/1364013. JSTOR 1364013. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
  4. ^ Hertel, Fritz (1995). "Ecomorphological indicators of feeding behavior in Recent and fossil raptors" (PDF). Auk. 12 (4): 890–903. doi:10.2307/4089021. hdl:10211.3/138737. JSTOR 4089021. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
  5. ^ Howard, Hildegarde (1968). "Limb measurements of the extinct vulture, Coragyps occidentalis". Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico. 1: 115–127.
  6. ^ Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin; Johnson, Eileen (2003). "Catálogo de los ejemplares tipo procedentes de la Cueva de San Josecito, Nuevo León, México ("Catalogue of the type specimens from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo León, Mexico")" (PDF). Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas. 20 (1): 79–93. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2011. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
  7. ^ Miller, Loye (1957). "Bird Remains from a Prehistoric Cave Deposit in Grant County, New Mexico" (PDF). Condor. 59 (1): 59–63. doi:10.2307/1364617. JSTOR 1364617. Retrieved November 3, 2007.
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