Plesiocathartes is an extinct genus of birds that lived during the Eocene to Oligocene period. It currently presents 5 species from Europe and North America. It was originally described related to New World vultures, but recent studies have uncovered that the genus was more closely related to the cuckoo-roller from Madagascar.
Distribution
P. insolitipes fossils are known from Walton-on-the-Naze, a site stratigraphically located in the Walton Member of the London Clay Formation of southeastern England.
References
Further reading
- R. L. Carroll. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution 1-698
- J. F. de Villalta. 1963. Las aves fósiles del Mioceno español. Boletin de la Real Socieded Española de Historia Natural 61:263-285
- K. Lambrecht. 1933. Handbuch der Palaeornithologie. 1-1024
- G. Mayr. 2005. The Paleogene fossil record of birds in Europe. Biological Reviews 80:513-542
- G. Mayr and T. Smith. 2019. A diverse bird assemblage from the Ypresian of Belgium furthers knowledge of early Eocene avifaunas of the North Sea Basin. Neus Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie, Abhandlungen 291(3):253-281