The Accipitridae is one of the four families within the order Accipitriformes, and is a family of small to large birds of prey with strongly hooked bills and variable morphology based on diet. They feed on a range of prey items from insects to medium-sized mammals, with a number feeding on carrion and a few feeding on fruit. The Accipitridae have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found on all the world's continents and a number of oceanic island groups. Some species are migratory. The family contains 256 species which are divided into 12 subfamilies and 75 genera.
Cathartidae, known commonly as New World vultures or condors, are a family of birds of prey consisting of seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in the Americas. They are known as "New World" vultures to distinguish them from Old World vultures, with which the Cathartidae does not form a single clade despite the two being similar in appearance and behavior as a result of convergent evolution.
The Egyptian vulture, also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken, is a small Old World vulture in the monotypic genus Neophron. It is widely distributed from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, West Asia and India. The contrasting underwing pattern and wedge-shaped tail make it distinctive in flight as it soars in thermals during the warmer parts of the day. Egyptian vultures feed mainly on carrion but are opportunistic and will prey on small mammals, birds, and reptiles. They also feed on the eggs of other birds, breaking larger ones by tossing a large pebble onto them.
The black vulture, also known as the American black vulture, Mexican vulture, zopilote, urubu, or gallinazo, is a bird in the New World vulture family whose range extends from the southeastern United States to Perú, Central Chile and Uruguay in South America. Although a common and widespread species, it has a somewhat more restricted distribution than its compatriot, the turkey vulture, which breeds well into Canada and all the way south to Tierra del Fuego. It is the only extant member of the genus Coragyps, which is in the family Cathartidae. Despite the similar name and appearance, this species is not closely related to the Eurasian black vulture, an Old World vulture, of the family Accipitridae. For ease of locating animal corpses, black vultures tend to inhabit relatively open areas with scattered trees, such as chaparral, in addition to subtropical forested areas and parts of the Brazilian pantanal.
The king vulture is a large bird found in Central and South America. It is a member of the New World vulture family Cathartidae. This vulture lives predominantly in tropical lowland forests stretching from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. It is the only surviving member of the genus Sarcoramphus, although fossil members are known.
Gyps is a genus of Old World vultures that was proposed by Marie Jules César Savigny in 1809. Its members are sometimes known as griffon vultures. Gyps vultures have a slim head, a long slender neck with downy feathers, and a ruff around the neck formed by long buoyant feathers. The crown of their big beaks is a little compressed, and their big dark nostrils are set transverse to the beak. They have six or seven wing feathers, of which the first is the shortest and the fourth the longest.
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of H. erectus in 1950 as H. e. heidelbergensis, but towards the end of the century, it was more widely classified as its own species. It is debated whether or not to constrain H. heidelbergensis to only Europe or to also include African and Asian specimens, and this is further confounded by the type specimen being a jawbone, because jawbones feature few diagnostic traits and are generally missing among Middle Pleistocene specimens. Thus, it is debated if some of these specimens could be split off into their own species or a subspecies of H. erectus. Because the classification is so disputed, the Middle Pleistocene is often called the "muddle in the middle".
Coragyps is a genus of New World vulture that contains the black vulture (Coragyps atratus) and two extinct relatives.
Torgos is a genus of Old World vulture that contains two species, an extant species, the Lappet-faced vulture and the fossil species Torgos platycephalus from the late Pleistocene of Azerbajian and an unnamed fossil species from middle Pleistocene China.
Teratornithidae is an extinct family of very large birds of prey that lived in North and South America from the Late Oligocene to Late Pleistocene. They include some of the largest known flying birds. Its members are known as teratorns.
Leptoptilos is a genus of very large tropical storks, commonly known as adjutants. The name means thin (lepto) feather (ptilos). Two species are resident breeders in southern Asia, and the marabou stork is found in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Teratornis was a genus of huge North American birds of prey—the best-known of the teratorns—of which, two species are known to have existed: Teratornis merriami and Teratornis woodburnensis. A large number of fossil and subfossil bones, representing more than 100 individuals, have been found in locations in California, Oregon, southern Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, though most are from the Californian La Brea Tar Pits. All remains except one Early Pleistocene partial skeleton from the Leisey Shell Pit near Charlotte Harbor, Florida date from the Late Pleistocene, with the youngest remains dating from the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary.
The white-headed vulture is an Old World vulture endemic to Africa. Populations have been declining steeply in recent years due to habitat degradation and poisoning of vultures at carcasses. An extinct relative was also present in the Indonesian island of Flores during the Late Pleistocene, indicating that the genus was more widespread in the past.
Cathartornis is an ancient bird of the Teratornithidae family. It lived somewhere between 23 million years and 10,000 years ago. The only evidence of the bird's existence is a few bones. Its remains were documented in 1910. Cathartornis was described on the basis of 2 tarsometatarsi, 1 complete and 1 containing only the distal end, recovered from the Pleistocene La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California. Since then, no other fossils have officially been referred to the taxon, though some fossils assigned to Teratornis could be from Cathartornis and unpublished remains have been mentioned.
Neogyps is an extinct monotypic genus of Old World vulture. Despite being an "Old World" vulture taxonomically, it was native to the New World, with its fossils having been found in western North America, including in the La Brea Tar Pits of southern California, dating to the Late Pleistocene. Several morphological characters suggest that Neogyps is closely related to the subfamily Gypaetinae.
Neophrontops is an extinct genus of Old World vulture. Despite being taxonomically an "Old World" vulture, specifically a member of the subfamily Gypaetinae, it was native to North America, with six species having been named, spanning from the Early Miocene to the Late Pleistocene. All except N. americanus are only known from fragmentary remains, though well preserved remains are known from the late Middle-Late Pleistocene aged La Brea Tar Pits of Southern California.
Gymnogyps amplus is an extinct species of large New World vulture in the family Cathartidae. The species was first described by Loye H. Miller (1911) in 1911 from a partial tarsometatarsus recovered from Pleistocene cave deposits in Samwel Cave of northern California. Harvey I. Fisher (1944) designated a set of plesiotypes from the Rancho La Brea which includes a cranium, rostrum, and mandible.
Pleistovultur is an extinct genus of large New World vulture from the Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene of South America. The type species P. nevesi was described based in a complete and well preserved right tibiotarsus from the Cuvieri cave deposits in Lagoa Santa region in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It was larger than Sarcoramphus papa, but smaller than Vultur gryphus.
Coragyps occidentalis, the Pleistocene black vulture, is an extinct species of New World vulture that lived throughout North and South America during the Pleistocene. It was formerly thought to be the ancestor to the modern black vulture, but is now thought to have evolved from it; the modern black vulture is paraphyletic with respect to it.
Emslie's vulture is an extinct species of vulture in the family Cathartidae. It is only known from a series of fossils found in western Cuba. The fossils were primarily found in caves or Quaternary asphalt deposits. It is significantly smaller than the extant C. aura. It likely became extinct during the Holocene following the extinction of Cuban Pleistocene megafauna whose bodies it would have fed on, coupled with the loss of the open savannas it would have inhabited.
