Sarcoramphus

Mlíkovský, Jiří, 2015, The type specimens, type localities and nomenclature of Sarcoramphus vultures (Aves: Cathartidae), with a note on their speciation, Zootaxa 3918 (4), pp. 579-586 : 582-583

Speciation in Sarcoramphus vultures

The genus Sarcoramphus is treated as monotypic in standard reference works (e.g. Houston 1994, Ferguson-Lees & Christie 2001, Dickinson & Remsen 2013); no accepted fossil species are known. Sarcoramphus papa , the only contemporary species, occurs mainly in lowland forests of northern South America and of Central America, although individuals may be encountered in treeless areas as well ( Ferguson-Lees & Christie 2001). However, indications exist that extinct Sarcoramphus species may have lived south and north of the present range of the genus.

First, Noriega and Areta (2005) identified from the late Pleistocene of Camet Norte, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, several bones from a single individual of a Sarcoramphus vulture. The bones were found in a deposit C- 14-dated to 24,550±600 yr BP ( Pardiñas et al. 1998). Pardiñas et al. (1998) reconstructed the local paleoenvironment as semiarid-arid steppes. Noriega & Areta (2005) challenged their view, arguing that the presence of a Sarcoramphus species was evidence for the presence of forests. They rejected the possibility that the recorded individual was a vagrant and suggested that it originated from a local population. However, the record, as they presented it, allows for both interpretations. If the specimen indeed originated from a local population, then further research is needed to assess its taxonomic status. It is not impossible that an extinct Sarcoramphus species inhabited the steppes of Argentina (and adjacent parts of South America) in the late Pleistocene.

Second, Snyder and Fry (2013) suggested that an extinct Sarcoramphus species inhabited the southeastern USA (in agreement with most 19th -century authors, but against the opinion of most 20th -century authors; see above for citations). They based their opinion on a written account by William Bartram, who travelled in the region in the 1780s ( Bartram 1791), a painting of a captive individual made in the 1730s in England by Albin (1738), and arguably on a description of an “eagle” from Louisiana by Le Page (1752: 125–126, 1758: 109, 1763: 75–76). [Note that Snyder & Fry 2013 incorrectly called this chronicler DuPratz and that they did not refer to his 1752 and 1763 works.]

Snyder and Fry (2013) suggested that Sarcoramphus sacer was recorded from Florida (Bartram) and Louisiana (Le Page). LePage's (1752, 1758, 1763) record from Louisiana, where he lived from 1718–1734, is uncertain, as noted by Snyder and Fry (2013), because his description of the bird cannot be unambiguously interpreted as that of Sarcoramphus sacer .

However, the existence of both a “southern” and a “northern” Sarcoramphus species can be doubted. First, the specimen recorded from the late Pleistocene of Argentina may indeed belong to Sarcoramphus papa as suggested by Noriega and Areta (2005). Secondly, Bartram’s (1791) description of the bird might have been inaccurate (as suggested by most 20th -century authors; see above for citations). Other 18th -century authors who described the avifauna of the American Southeast did not record such a bird ( Catesby 1732, 1743; Dumont 1753: 87–92; Bossu 1768: 172–178; see also McAtee 1950, 1957a, b). Albin’s (1738) painting has been said to be incorrectly colored by his contemporaries ( Edwards 1743: 2; see also Brisson 1760: 471). Finally, no Sarcoramphus bones were found in the Holocene deposits of the region to the best of my knowledge, although those of Coragyps and Cathartes vultures were (e.g. Brodkorb 1964, Emslie 1998).