| Bahaman caracara Temporal range: Quaternary | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Falconiformes |
| Family: | Falconidae |
| Genus: | Caracara |
| Species: | †C. creightoni |
| Binomial name | |
| †Caracara creightoni Brodkorb, 1959 | |
| Synonyms | |
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The Bahaman caracara (Caracara creightoni), also known as Creighton's caracara, [1] is an extinct bird of prey. It is known only from a few fossils discovered in the Bahamas and Cuba. [2] Caracara creightoni was a scavenger and opportunistic species instead of a predator like its sister extant species (C. plancus). It lived during the late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene era.
C. creightoni stood 58 cm tall, was short-winged and likely a poor flier. [2] This species went extinct as a result of humans arriving on its home islands and wiping out the bird's prey species. [1] A 2,500 year old C. creightoni femur from an Abaco Islands blue hole yielded a nearly complete mitochondrial genome. [3] The DNA shows that the species was closely related to the crested caracara. The two species last shared a common ancestor between 1.2 and 0.4 million years ago, during the Pleistocene.
