Caracara

Caracara is a genus in the family Falconidae and the subfamily Polyborinae. It contains one extant species, the crested caracara, and one recently extinct species, the Guadalupe caracara. The crested caracara had in recent years been split into a northern species C. cheriway and a southern species C. plancus, but the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society has voted to again merge the two, retaining C. plancus as the crested caracara. The taxonomists of the International Ornithologists' Union have also merged them.

Caracara

Manjith Kainickara · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
caracaraPBDB
Sits inside
FalconidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Falconidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae

Time the record covers

At least 5.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 43 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 43 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 36 of 43 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 5 of 43 occurrences7.5–7.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.2–7.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.0–6.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.7–6.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.5–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.9–5.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.7–5.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.4–5.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.4–3.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.1–2.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–1.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.8–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.3–1.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.0–775 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences775 ka–516 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences516 ka–258 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences258 ka–0 Mya — about 39 occurrences5.333 Mya11.7 ka7.7 Mya0 Mya

43 occurrences of Caracara 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

43 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

5 formations

Caleta Herradura de Mejillones — 23.36°S, 70.53°WBecerra — 19.90°N, 99.13°WPampean — 38.20°S, 59.12°WCerro Azul — 35.69°S, 64.67°WLaguna de Tagua Tagua — 34.50°S, 71.17°W

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The named rock units Caracara has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 38 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Caracara and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Caracara and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,045 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Caracara, 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

33 references

Each of the 43 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. 21 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 content3

Picture of Caracara

Credit
Manjith Kainickara
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
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

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itFalconidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Merrem 1826