Gymnogyps californianus

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- California condorPBDB
- Sits inside
- GymnogypsPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cathartidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Cathartidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Cathartidae
- Mass
- 8.45 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
21 occurrences of Gymnogyps californianus 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
21 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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.
Gymnogyps californianus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Gymnogyps californianus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
584 taxa- Buteo jamaicensis15 sites
- Falco sparverius14 sites
- Corvus corax12 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus12 sites
- Tyto alba12 sites
- Branta canadensis10 sites
- Bubo virginianus10 sites
- Cathartes aura10 sites
- Accipiter cooperii9 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos9 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos8 sites
- Caracara cheriway8 sites
- Coragyps occidentalis8 sites
- Teratornis merriami8 sites
- Zenaida macroura8 sites
- Ardea herodias7 sites
- Athene cunicularia7 sites
- Buteo swainsoni7 sites
- Colaptes auratus cafer7 sites
- Sturnella neglecta7 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos6 sites
- Antigone canadensis6 sites
- Callipepla californica6 sites
- Canis latrans6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Gymnogyps californianus, 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
16 references- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island3
- A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California2
- The fossil Birds of California2
- Avifauna of the Pleistocene cave deposits of California2
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California1
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa1
- Quaternary avian remains from Dark Canyon Cave, New Mexico1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- The fossil avifauna of Itchtucknee River, Florida1
- Stone Man Cave, Shasta County, California1
Each of the 21 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. 4 further references are not listed. 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 Gymnogyps californianus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGymnogyps through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Shaw 1797)