Coragyps seductus Suárez, 2020

Suárez, William, 2022, Catalogue of Cuban fossil and subfossil birds, Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 142 (1), pp. 247-248 : 30-31

12. † Coragyps seductus Suárez, 2020

Cuban Black Vulture (Zopilote Cubano)

Coragyps seductus Suárez, 2020 a, Zootaxa 4780: 12.

History.— May 2001: first notification of an extinct small vulture ‘larger than C. aura ’ from Cuba (Suárez 2001b: 110) . 25–27 December 2002: WS & Stephen Díaz Franco collect paratypes in San Felipe II, at the type locality . 22 May 2020: original description published (Suárez 2020a).

Holotype.—Near-complete left tarsometatarsus, MNHNCu 75.4719 (Suárez 2020a: 12, fig. 6: A [anterior], B [posterior], C [distal]). Collected in San Felipe II on 24 February 2001 by WS and Stephen Díaz Franco (Suárez 2020a: 3).

Other material.— Femur: proximal half of left lacking trochanter, MNHNCu 75.4718 (fig. 6: E [anterior], F [posterior]). Tarsometatarsus: proximal left, MNHNCu 75.4720 (fig. 6: D [proximal]). Cited material and figures are from Suárez (2020a).

Type locality.— Las Breas de San Felipe ( MLB), c. 5.5 km west of town of Martí , San Felipe Valley, municipality of Martí, Matanzas province, Cuba (Suárez 2020a: 12; for description of the deposit, see Iturralde-Vinent et al. 2000). Fig. 5 .

Distribution.—Asphalt deposits in west Cuba (see Appendix). Matanzas. Martí: MLB (Suárez 2020a: 12).

Direct 14 C dating .—None. For dating of other bird species at the type locality, see Antigone cubensis , Gymnogyps varonai and Ornimegalonyx oteroi , and of associated extinct mammals ( Parocnus browni = 11,880 ± 420 to 4,960 ± 280 years 14 C BP), see Jull et al. (2004) and Steadman et al. (2005).

Notes.—The rarest extinct Cuban cathartid, restricted to its type locality. Larger and more robust than living Black Vulture Coragyps atratus ( Bechstein, 1793) and similar in size to extinct C. occidentalis (L. Miller, 1909) , but with tarsometatarsus slender, among other characters (Suárez 2020a: 12). Also, proximal foramina of the tarsometatarsus are more distally placed in the two Cuban specimens available (S. L. Olson & WS unpubl.) than in congeneric species, but this can be variable and requires further evaluation of additional, insular fossil material. A distal fragment of carpometacarpus from a cave deposit in ASA, western Cuba, probably involves this taxon, but it is insufficient in diagnostic characters for a positive identification (Suárez 2020a: 13). As with Cuban Condor, the Cuban Black Vulture seems to have diverged during the Quaternary, after colonisation probably from Florida , evolving rapidly in isolation and depending on an endemic, insular ‘megafauna’, where competitive carnivorous mammals were absent (see Arredondo 1976: 170, Morgan et al. 1980: 606, Suárez 2000a: 120, Suárez & Emslie 2003: 36, Silva Taboada et al. 2008: 328–329, Suárez & Olson 2020b: 341).

March (1863: 150–151) reported vultures observed and prepared for collection by him in Jamaica, including the ‘John Crow Vulture [= Cathartes aura ]’, ‘The Black, or Carrion Crow Vulture [= Coragyps atratus ]’ and another, unknown vulture species, of which he stated: ‘In the autumn of 1828, I obtained from Great Salt Pond a specimen of a black Vulture, mottled with white spots, about the size of Pandion carolinensis . It was so obese, with deep fulvous fat, that I had much difficulty in preserving it in part. I sent the specimen to the Royal Dublin Society, but have received no information of its having been identified with any described species.’ The specimen, or material that matches March’s description, are unknown in the Dublin collection (P. Viscardi in litt. 2021). William T. March (1804–72) was a Jamaican native naturalist and collector (see Levy 2008, 2013). Although the bird he collected in 1828 could have been a leucistic Cathartes aura (see Zeiger et al. 2017), it is also possible that it was an individual of the Cuban (Antillean?) extinct species Coragyps seductus , which was larger than C. atratus (Suárez 2020a). If the skin still exists, and its identity, are the subject of pending investigations.