Caracara cheriway

The crested caracara is a bird of prey (raptor) in the falcon family, Falconidae. It was formerly placed in the genus Polyborus before being given in its own genus, Caracara. It is native to and found in the southern and southeastern United States, Mexico and the majority of mainland Latin America, as well as some Caribbean islands. The crested caracara is quite adaptable and hardy, for a species found predominantly in the neotropics; it can be found in a range of environments and ecosystems, including semi-arid and desert climates, maritime or coastal areas, subtropical and tropical forests, temperate regions, plains, swamps, and even in urban areas. Documented, albeit rare, sightings have occurred as far north as Minnesota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island. The southern extent of the crested caracara's distribution can reach as far as Tierra del Fuego and Magallanes Region, Chile.

Caracara cheriway

Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
crested caracaraPBDB
Sits inside
CaracaraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Falconidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae

Time the record covers

At most 199 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 14 of 14 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 14 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence710 ka0 Mya

14 occurrences of Caracara cheriway on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

14 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Becerra — 19.90°N, 99.13°W

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The named rock units Caracara cheriway has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Caracara cheriway and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Caracara cheriway and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

541 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Caracara cheriway, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 14 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Caracara cheriway

Credit
Andreas Trepte
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Caracara cheriway · TxVP:M:16909

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCaracara through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Jacquin 1784)