Putative Sarcoramphus species

During much of the 19th century, the generic name Sarcoramphus was used for vultures now included in the genus Vultur Linnaeus (1758: 86) (see Sharpe 1874: 20–21 and Hellmayr & Conover 1949: 1–2 for citations). In that time, two species were described in the genus Sarcoramphus . First, Sarcoramphus condor was created by Lesson (1830: 25) as a new replacement name for Vultur gryphus Linnaeus, 1758 . Then, Sarcoramphus aequatorialis was described by Sharpe (1874: 21) on the basis of reports by Eydoux & Souleyet (1841) and Orton (1871) and on a zoo specimen. This nominal species is synonymous with Vultur gryphus Linnaeus (Hellmayr & Conover 1949: 2) . Five fossil species were also described in the genus Sarcoramphus, as follows. Sarcoramphus fossilis Moreno & Mercerat (1891: 27) from the Holocene of Argentina was found to be a stork of indeterminate species, family Ciconiidae (Tonni & Noriega 1998) . Sarcoramphus patruus Lönnberg (1903: 1) from the Pleistocene (see Tonni et al. 2009 and MacFadden et al. 2013 for the age of these deposits) of Bolivia belongs in the genus Vultur (Brodkorb 1964: 253) . Sarcoramphus clarki Miller (1910: 11) was transferred by Miller & Howard (1938: 171) to the new genus Breagyps, a genus not closely related to Sarcoramphus within the Cathartidae (Fisher 1944, Howard 1974, Emslie 1988). Vultur kernensis Miller (1931: 70) from the late Pliocene (Blancan) of California was transferred to the genus Sarcoramphus by Brodkorb (1964: 253), but was subsequently found to be a vulture of indeterminate species, family Cathartidae, by Emslie (1988: 222). Sarcoramphus ? fisheri Campbell (1979: 71) from the late Pleistocene of Peru was only tentatively included in the genus Sarcoramphus and its taxonomic identity remains doubtful (Emslie 1988: 222). In summary, no genuine fossil representatives of vultures of the genus Sarcoramphus are known.