Caracara creightoni Brodkorb, 1959:353

Bahaman caracara, Bahamas caracara, Southern caracara (as P. plancus), Creighton’s caracara Caraira de Creighton

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

Synonym/s: Polyborus creightoni Brodkorb, 1959:353; Polyborus plancus Olson, 1976:363

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: Holocene (Steadman & Franklin, 2020:Table 3)

Distribution & Habitat

Abaco, Long Island & New Providence, Bahamas & Cuba

Biology & Ecology

Hypodigm

Holotype: UF 3153 (1 major metacarpal)

Other specimens:

USNM 283281 (1 distal end of tibiotarsus)

USNM 283289 (1 quadrate lacking orbital process)

Media

References

Original scientific description:

Brodkorb, Pierce. (1959). Pleistocene Birds from New Providence Island, Bahamas. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 4(11): 349-371.

Other references:

Campbell, K. E., Jr. (1979). The non-passerine Pleistocene avifauna of the Talara tar seeps, northwestern Peru. Royal Ontario Museum Life Sciences Contributions 118: 1-203. [erroneously attributes material to P. plancus, which was used for the description of the species C. seymouri (Suárez & Olson, 2014)]

Faurby, Søren, Matthews, Tom J., Triantis, Kostas A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2026). Quantifying the unrecorded loss of avian phylogenetic diversity. Ecography 2026: e08267. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08267

Hume, Julian Pender and Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. 544 pp.

Matthews, Thomas J., Triantis, Kostas A., Wayman, Joseph P., Martin, Thomas E., Hume, Julian P., Cardoso, Pedro, Faurby, Søren, Mendenhall, Chase D., Dufour, Paul, Rigal, François, Cooke, Rob, Whittaker, Robert J., Pigot, Alex L., Thébaud, Christophe, Jørgensen, Maria Wagner, Benavides, Eva, Soares, Filipa C., Ulrich, Werner, Kubota, Yasuhiro, Sadler, Jon P., Tobias, Joseph A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2024). The global loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity from anthropogenic extinctions. Science 386(6717): 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7898 [Supplementary Materials; Dryad dataset; Zenodo codeset]

Matthews, Thomas J., Wayman, Joseph P., Cardoso, Pedro, Sayol, Ferran, Hume, Julian P., Ulrich, Werner, Tobias, Joseph A., Soares, Filipa C., Thébaud, Christophe, Martin, Thomas E. and Triantis, Kostas A. (2022). Threatened and extinct island endemic birds of the world: Distribution, threats and functional diversity. Journal of Biogeography 49(11): 1920-1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14474 [Appendix S1 (.docx); Appendix S2 (.pdf)]

Morgan GS (1994) Late Quaternary fossil vertebrates from the Cayman Islands. In Brunt MA and Davies JE, eds, The Cayman Islands: Natural History and Biogeography, pp. 465–508. Kluwer, Dordrecht.

Olson, Storrs L. (1976). A New Species of Milvago from Hispaniola, with Notes on Other Fossil Caracaras from the West Indies (Aves: Falconidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 88(33): 355-366.

Olson, Storrs L. and Hilgartner, William B. (1982). Fossil and Subfossil Birds from the Bahamas, pp. 22-56. In: Olson, Storrs L. (ed). Fossil vertebrates from the Bahamas. Smithsonian Contributions to Palaeobiology, No. 48: 1-68.

Orihuela, Johanset. (2019). An annotated list of late Quaternary extinct birds of Cuba. Ornitología Neotropical 30: 57-67.

Oswald, Jessica A., Allen, Julia M. et al. (In Press, 2019). Ancient DNA from a 2,500-year-old Caribbean fossil places an extinct bird (Caracara creightoni) in a phylogenetic context. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106576 [Abstract]

Oswald, Jessica A. and Steadman, David W. (2018). The late Quaternary bird community of New Providence, Bahamas. The Auk 135(2): 359-377. [Abstract]

Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M.,  Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]

Steadman, D. W., Franz, R., Morgan, G. S., Albury, N. A., Kakuk, B., Broad, K., ... & Dilcher, D. L. (2007). Exceptionally well preserved late Quaternary plant and vertebrate fossils from a blue hole on Abaco, The Bahamas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(50): 19897-19902.

Steadman, David W. and Franklin, Janet. (2020). Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas. PNAS. doi/10.1073/pnas.2013368117 [Supplementary Information]

Suárez, William and Olson, Storrs L. (2001). Further characterization of Caracara creightoni Brodkorb based on fossils from the Quaternary of Cuba (Aves: Falconidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 114(2): 501-508.

Suárez, William and Olson, Storrs L. (2003). A new species of caracara (Milvago) from Quaternary asphalt deposits in Cuba, with notes on new material of Caracara creightoni Brodkorb (Aves: Falconidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 116(2): 301-307.

Suárez, William and Olson, Storrs L. (2014). A new fossil species of small crested caracara (Aves: Falconidae: Caracara) from the Pacific lowlands of western South America. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 127(2): 299-310. [Abstract]

Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/12494/caracara-creightoni-bahamas