Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

A new buzzard from the late Pliocene of Argentina

Federico J. Degrange, Claudia P. Tambussi, Matías L. Taglioretti, and Fernando A. Scaglia

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 66 (4), 2021: 779-787 doi:https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00933.2021

We describe a new species of a large buzzard (Accipitridae), Buteo dondasi sp. nov. from the late Pliocene of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina represented by an incomplete left hind limb, including a distal fragment of tibiotarsus, tarsometatarsus, fragment of os metatarsale I, and toes I and II. The new taxon exhibits characteristics of the crown group Accipitridae and the shape of the tarsometarsus allows its assignment to the genus Buteo. The new species represents the very first record of a representative of a non-scavenging diurnal bird of prey for the Chapadmalalan and one of the largest accipitrids (~ 2.3 kg) known for Argentina.

Key words: Aves, Accipitriformes, Buteo , zoophagy, Pliocene, Atlantic coast, Argentina.

Federico J. Degrange [fjdino@gmail.com](corresponding autor) and Claudia P. Tambussi [tambussi.claudia@conicet.gov.ar], Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Avenida Vélez Sársfield 1611, X5016GCA, Córdoba, Argentina. Matías L. Taglioretti [paleomat@gmail.com], Museo Municipal de Ciencias Naturales Lorenzo Scaglia, Instituto de Geología de Costas y del Cuaternario (CIC-UNMdP), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Deán Funes 3250, B7602AYJ, Mar del Plata, Argentina. Fernando A. Scaglia [feroscaglia@gmail.com], Museo Municipal de Ciencias Naturales Lorenzo Scaglia, Av. Libertad 3099, B7600HJB, Mar del Plata, Argentina.


This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.