Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758)

Orihuela, Johanset, Orozco, Leonel Pérez, Álvarez Licourt, Jorge L., Viera Muñoz, Ricardo A. & Barani, Candido Santana, 2020, Late Holocene land vertebrate fauna from Cueva de los Nesofontes, Western Cuba: Stratigraphy, chronology, diversity, and paleoecology, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 57) 23 (3), pp. 1-46 : 15-17

Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758)

Figure 5.1

Material. One left femur (MNHNCu uncatalogued, field no. 582a) and a complete skull (MNHNCu uncatalogued, field no. 582b) without mandible from bed A (level I), and one incomplete premaxilla (MNHNCu uncatalogued, field no. 193) from bed G (level III) ( Figure 5.1 ). A complete skeleton with evidence of anthropogenic combustion was found at the lower part of the main doline gallery, but not collected.

Description. With the fossil fragment provided in parenthesis, the specimens measured as follows: maximum skull length 91.9 mm, maximum upper maxilla length 51.2 mm (45.2 mm), maximum nasal opening width 18.1 mm (17.1 mm), and maximum maxillary width 14.3 mm (14.5 mm). The femur measured in maximum length (GTL) 69.4 mm, proximal maximum width (GPW) 18.9 mm, distal maximum width (GDW) 17.6 mm, and a maximum width of the diaphysis (shaft-GSW) 18.1 mm. The fossil premaxilla is not mineralized but showed slight evidence of corrosion and weathering.

Taxonomic remarks. Suárez (2001) mentioned the existence of two undescribed extinct vultures from Cuba . One of them seems referable to the genus Cathartes but is not C. aura ( Suárez, 2001; Orihuela, 2019). However, the specimen reported here seems indistinguishable quantitatively or qualitatively from C. aura ( Figure 5.1 ). Our specimen from layer G lacks a direct date, but it was found between the dated contexts ranged between 1690 ± 30 and 1290 ± 30 rcyr BP and is thus preliminarily considered late Holocene/pre-Columbian in age. Therefore, this constitutes the first pre-Columbian record of C. aura in Cuba .

Figures

FIGURE 5. Bird fossil and subfossil remains from test pit D. 1, Cathartes aura maxilla in lateral and dorsal view. 2, proximal tibiotarsus of Colaptes cf. fernandinae. 3, the humerus of Psittacara eups. 4, distal coracoid of Progne cf. cryptoleuca or subis. 5, humerus of Tachycineta bicolor (FLMNH-UF 17685); 6, humerus of Tachycineta cf. bicolor. 7, humerus of Geotrygon cf. chrysia. 8, humerus of Sphyrapicus varius. 9, humerus of Melanerpes superciliaris. 10, tarsometatarsus (left) and humerus of Margarobyas lawrencii. 11, humerus of Saurothera merlini. The numbers on specimens are field numbers. Each scale bar represents 10 mm.