Gymnogyps

Gymnogyps is a genus of New World vultures in the family Cathartidae. There are five known species in the genus, with only one being extant, the California condor.

Gymnogyps
California condor (Gymnogyps californianus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Cathartiformes
Family:	Cathartidae
Genus:	Gymnogyps Lesson, 1842
Species
Gymnogyps californianus †Gymnogyps varonai †Gymnogyps amplus †Gymnogyps howardae †Gymnogyps kofordi

Fossil species

• Gymnogyps amplus was first described by L. H. Miller in 1911 from a broken tarsometatarsus.[1][2] The species is the only condor species found in the La Brea Tar Pits' Pit 10, which fossils date to "a Holocene radiocarbon age of 9,000 years."[2] The smaller, modern California condor may have evolved from G. amplus.[2]

• Gymnogyps howardae was described from the Late Pleistocene (Lujanian) asphalt deposits known as the Talara Tar Seeps, near Talara, northwestern Peru. It lived about 126,000-12,000 years ago.[3]

• Gymnogyps kofordi was described based on a right tarsometatarsus.[4]

• Gymnogyps varonai is known from fossils found in the late Pleistocene to early Holocene tar seep deposits in Cuba. It may have preyed upon carcasses from large mammals such as ground sloths.[3][5]

References

1. Nadin, Elisabeth (26 October 2007). "Tracing the Roots of the California Condor". Caltech News. California Institute of Technology. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
2. Syverson, Valerie J.; Prothero, Donald R. (2010). "Evolutionary Patterns in Late Quaternary California Condors" (PDF). PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology. PalArch Foundation. 7 (1): 1–18. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
3. Suárez, W.; Emslie, S.D. (2003). "New fossil material with a redescription of the extinct condor Gymnogyps varonai (Arredondo, 1971) from the Quaternary of Cuba (Aves: Vulturidae)" (PDF). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 116 (1): 29–37.
4. Emslie, Steven D. (June 1988). "The Fossil History and Phylogenetic Relationships of Condors (Ciconiiformes: Vulturidae) in the New World". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 8 (2): 212–228. doi:10.1080/02724634.1988.10011699. JSTOR 4523192.
5. Iturralde Vinent, M.A.; MacPhee, R.D.E.; Díaz Franco, S.; Rojas Consuegra, R.; Suárez, W.; Lomba, A. (2000). "Las Breas de San Felipe, a quaternary fossiliferous asphalt seep near Martí (Matanzas Province, Cuba)" (PDF). Caribbean Journal of Science. 36 (3–4): 300–313. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2012-11-28.