Tyto cravesae Suárez & Olson, 2015

Suárez, William, 2020, The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba, Zootaxa 4780 (1), pp. 1-53 : 30-31

† Tyto cravesae Suárez & Olson, 2015

Craves’s Giant Barn Owl; Lechuza Gigante de Craves

( Figure 12 : A–B)

Tyto cravesae Suárez & Olson, 2015 , Zootaxa 4020 (3), p. 545.

Referred material. San Felipe I: Distal end of the left tarsometatarsus, MNHNCu 75.4801.

Description. The specimen MNHNCu 75.4801 has been compared and described by Suárez & Olson (2015), where Tyto noeli Arredondo, 1972 , is smaller, but T. pollens Wetmore, 1937 , much larger. See additional comparisons in the original description of T. cravesae in Suárez & Olson (2015) .

Measurements ( Tyto noeli in parentheses, after Suárez & Olson 2015: table 2). — Distal width: 18.1 (14.4–17.3 [15.7] 12).

Comments. The distal end of the tarsometatarsus that represents this large barn owl in Las Breas de San Felipe ( Fig. 12 A–B) was formerly recorded as Tyto sp. ( Iturralde-Vinent et al. 2000: table 2), and subsequently designated as the paratype of T. cravesae (see Suárez & Olson 2015: 547). The assessment that T. cravesae was the rarest of the Cuban large barn owls ( Orihuela 2019:62) and that in Cuba existed four large tytonids with marked anatomical adaptations for terrestrial locomotion ( Orihuela 2019: 57), is wrong (see Suárez & Olson 2015: 533, 539–540).

Figures

FIGURE 12. Tyto cravesae: Left tarsometatarsus (Paratype, MNHNCu 75.4801) in anterior (A) and distal (B) views. Pulsatrix arredondoi: Left tarsometatarsus (MNHNCu 75.4808) in anterior (C) and proximal (D) views. Ornimegalonyx oteroi: Right tarsometatarsus (MNHNCu 75.4804) in anterior (E), proximal (F), distal (G) and posterior (H) views. Ornimegalonyx sp.: Right femur (MNHNCu 75.4714) in proximal (I) and anterior (J) views. Scale = 2 cm.