Abstract

ALVARENGA, Herculano et al. Pleistovultur nevesi gen. et sp. nov. (Aves: Vulturidae) and the diversity of condors and vultures in the South American Pleistocene. Ameghiniana [online]. 2008, vol.45, n.3, pp.613-618. ISSN 1851-8044.

Pleistovultur nevesi, a new genus and species of a large Vulturidae is described from the Upper Pleistocene or beginning of the Holocene, based on a complete and well preserved right tibiotarsus from the Cuvieri cave deposits, one of the hundreds of caves of the Lagoa Santa region in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Also described here is a distal half of a left tibiotarsus from Gruta dos Brejões, a cave in Morro do Chapéu, Bahia state, Brazil, which probably belongs to another not-yet-known genus and species of the Vulturidae. The described material, added to prior literature, is proof of the appreciable diversity of the Vulturidae during the Pleistocene in South America.

Keywords : Vulturidae; Pleistocene; South America; Condor; Pleistovultur nevesi; Caves.