Milvago diazfrancoi Suárez, 2020

Suárez, William, 2022, Catalogue of Cuban fossil and subfossil birds, Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 142 (1), pp. 247-248 : 54

32. † Milvago diazfrancoi Suárez, 2020

Díaz Franco’s Caracara (Caraira de Díaz Franco)

Milvago diazfrancoi Suárez, 2020 a, Zootaxa 4780: 36.

Holotype.—Left tarsometatarsus lacking trochleae II and IV, MNHNCu 75.4610 (Suárez 2020a: 36, fig. 14: A [anterior], B [posterior]). Collected on 14 May 2009 by WS and Stephen Díaz Franco in San Felipe I , at the type locality (Suárez 2020a: 36).

Other material.— Tibiotarsus: distal third of left, MNHNCu 75.7021 (fig. 14: F [distal], G [anterior]). Tarsometatarsus: distal half of right, MNHNCu 75.7022; distal end of right, MNHNCu 75.4826; proximal half of right, MNHNCu 75.4825 (fig. 14: C [anterior]); distal half of left, MNHNCu 75.7023 (fig. 14: D [posterior], E [anterior]); distal end of left, MNHNCu 75.4824. Cited material and figures are from Suárez (2020a).

Type locality.— Las Breas de San Felipe ( MLB), c. 5.5 km west of the town of Martí , San Felipe Valley, municipality of Martí, Matanzas province, Cuba (Suárez 2020a; for description of locality see Iturralde-Vinent et al. 2000). Fig. 5 .

Distribution.—Asphalt deposits in west Cuba (see Appendix). Matanzas. Martí: MLB (Suárez 2020a).

Direct 14 C dating .—None. For dating of other bird species at the type locality, see Antigone cubensis , Gymnogyps varonai and Ornimegalonyx oteroi , and of associated extinct mammals ( Parocnus browni = 11,880 ± 420 to 4,960 ± 280 years 14 C BP), see Jull et al. (2004) and Steadman et al. (2005).

Notes.—Very rare. M. diazfrancoi is about the size of M. alexandri [= Milvago wetmorei Arredondo 1982: 36 (lapsus calami)] Olson, 1976, from Haiti, with a slenderer tarsometatarsus in the former, among other distinguishing characters (Suárez 2020a: 36; see Olson 1976: fig. 1). Both taxa appear related to the continental modern-day Yellow-headed Caracara M. chimachima ( Olson 1976: 359, Suárez 2020a: 36–37), which is present in the fossil record of Florida ( Emslie 1998: 44–46) .