Milvago carbo Suárez & Olson, 2003c

Suárez, William, 2020, The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba, Zootaxa 4780 (1), pp. 1-53 : 35-36

† Milvago carbo Suárez & Olson, 2003c

Cuban Caracara ; Caraira Cubana

( Table 9)

Milvago carbo Suárez & Olson, 2003c , Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. vol. 116, no. 2, p 302.

Referred material. San Felipe II: Notarium, MNHNCu 75.4567; distal ends of left tibiotarsi, MNHNCu 75.4568, MNHNCu 75.4570-4571; right tarsometatarsus (holotype), MNHNCu 75.4569; proximal half of left tarsometatarsus without part of the inner and outer calcaneal ridges, MNHNCu 75.4572; shaft of left tarsometatarsus, MNHNCu 75.4573; proximal end of right tarsometatarsus, MNHNCu 75.4574; distal half of right tarsometatarsus, MNHNCu 75.4575-4576 (last one with abrasion); distal ends of left tarsometatarsi, MNHNCu 75.4577–4578 (this material is the type series of Milvago carbo Suárez & Olson, 2003c ) .

Description. This is the largest known species in the genus Milvago ( Suárez & Olson 2003c: fig.1; table 1). The referred material is comparable in size to those of the preceding caracara, Caracara creightoni , but are gracile and the tarsometatarsus is very elongated, with wide trochlea metatarsi II at its base, rotated slightly backwards and with the posterior wing perpendicular to the main axis of the shaft (for discussion on osteological characters of the genus Milvago , see Campbell 1980; Emslie 1995; Suárez & Olson 2003c).

Comments. In the Greater Antilles, two extinct species described in the genus Milvago are known: a small one, M. alexandri Olson, 1976 , from Quaternary cave deposits in Haiti, Hispaniola ( Olson 1976), and M. carbo from Cuba, the largest representative of the genus. In South America, another fossil species, M. brodkorbi Campbell, 1979 , is known from asphalt deposits in Talara, Peru ( Campbell 1979).