''Gymnogyps'' is a genus of
New World vultures in the family
Cathartidae
The New World vulture or condor family, Cathartidae, contains seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in warm and temperate areas of the Americas. The "New World" vultures were widespread ...
. There are five known species in the genus, with only one being extant, the
California condor.
Fossil species
*''Gymnogyps amplus'' was first described by
L. H. Miller in
1911
A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole.
Events January
* January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...
from a broken
tarsometatarsus
The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...
.
The species is the only condor species found in the La Brea Tar Pits' Pit 10, which fossils date to "a Holocene Radiocarbon dating, radiocarbon age of 9,000 years."
The smaller, modern California condor may have evolved from ''G. amplus''.
*''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.
*''Gymnogyps kofordi'' was described based on a right tarsometatarsus.
*''Gymnogyps varonai'' is known from fossils found in the late Pleistocene to early Holocene tar seep deposits in Cuba. It may have fed upon carcasses from large mammals such as ground sloths.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10763377
Gymnogyps,
Bird genera
Bird genera with one living species
Taxa named by René Lesson
