Plesiocathartes

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Plesiocathartes
Temporal range: Eocene to Oligocene
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Leptosomiformes
Genus: Plesiocathartes
Gaillard, 1908 [1]
Type species
P. europaeus
Gaillard, 1908
Other species [2]
  • P. gaillardiCrusafont & Villalta, 1955
  • P. majorWeidig, 2006
  • P. insolitipes Mayr & Kitchener, 2022
  • P. kelleri Mayr, 2002
  • P. wyomingensisWeidig, 2006

Plesiocathartes is an extinct genus of birds that lived during the Eocene to Oligocene period. It currently presents 5 species from Europe and North America. It was originally described related to New World vultures, but recent studies have uncovered that the genus was more closely related to the cuckoo-roller from Madagascar. [3]

Contents

Distribution

P. insolitipes fossils are known from Walton-on-the-Naze, a site stratigraphically located in the Walton Member of the London Clay Formation of southeastern England. [4]

References

  1. C. Gaillard. 1908. Les oiseaux des phosphorites du Quercy [The birds from the Quercy phosphorites]. Annales de l'Université de Lyon, nouvelle séries. 1. Sciences, Médecine 23:1-178
  2. "PBDB Taxon".
  3. Mayr, G. (2002). "A new species of Plesiocathartes (Aves: ?Leptosomidae) from the Middle Eocene of Messel, Germany". PaleoBios. 22: 10–20.
  4. Mayr, Gerald; Kitchener, Andrew C. (30 November 2022). "New species from the early Eocene London Clay suggest an undetected early Eocene diversity of the Leptosomiformes, an avian clade that includes a living fossil from Madagascar". Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments. 103 (3): 585–608. doi:10.1007/s12549-022-00560-0. ISSN   1867-1594 . Retrieved 4 March 2025 via Springer Nature Link.

Further reading