Vultur gryphus Linnaeus, 1758

Nascimento, Rafael S. & Silveira, Luís Fábio, 2024, Fossil and subfossil birds of Brazil, Zoologia (e 23079) 41, pp. 1-234 : 149

485. Vultur gryphus Linnaeus

Early Holocene – MG

“Condor remains” – Alvarenga (in Sick 1993): 150.

“restos do condor” – Alvarenga (in Sick 1997): 223.

Vultur gryphus – Alvarenga 1996: 4.

Vultur gryphus – Alvarenga 1998: 60–63, figs 2–3.

Vultur gryphus – Nascimento and Silveira 2020: 491.

Alvarenga (1996, 1998) associated a premaxilla (MNRJ- A-LV-82) discovered by the Franco-Brazilian Archeological Mission (1971–1976) in Lapa Vermelha IV in Confins, Minas Gerais, with Vultur gryphus , a species never positively record- ed in Brazil ( Pacheco et al. 2021). Previously, he alluded to it briefly in Sick (1993, 1997).

Alvarenga pointed out that the presence of this taxon at the beginning of the Holocene in Minas Gerais might indicate that the climate of the region was colder, with strong wind currents that would facilitate its takeoff and flight maintenance, or even that its distribution during this time spanned over a broad area of the continent’s east coast. The sediments where the bone was found are 10,220 –11,680 years old .

AgnolÍn (2016b), AgnolÍn et al. (2016), and AgnolÍn et al. (2017a), reviewing the fossil records associated with V. gryphus , restricted their occurrence to the late Pleistocene of northwestern Peru and southern Chile. They noted that, although the Brazilian specimen is similar to this species, its fragmentary nature and the lack of knowledge of the beak morphology in most South American fossil condors prevent its determination, and it is not unlikely that it may belong to Pleistovultur nevesi .