Main Menu

Class Aves
Order Carthartiformes
Family Cathartidae

rule

Breagyps clarki—Clark's Condor // Cathartes aura—Turkey Vulture // Coragyps—Black Vultures // Gymnogyps californianus—California Condor

Cathartidae—Condors and Vultures

The placement of the New World vultures has long been controversial (or at least, unclear). Currently, these, along with the Teratornithidae, are considered to form an order of their own, though closely related to the Acctripitriformes.

The cathartids are (and presumably the extinct forms were) scavengers, feeding on the recently dead. The megafaunal extinctions of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene apparently stressed members of the family, as indicated by extinction or contraction of geographic ranges of some.

Literature. Hackett et al. 2008.

rule

Last Update: 19 Jun 2017