Plesiocathartes

Plesiocathartes is an extinct genus of birds that lived during the Eocene to Oligocene period. It currently presents 5 species from Europe and North America. It was originally described related to New World vultures, but recent studies have uncovered that the genus was more closely related to the cuckoo-roller from Madagascar.^[3]

Plesiocathartes Temporal range: Eocene to Oligocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Leptosomiformes
Genus:	†Plesiocathartes Gaillard, 1908[1]
Type species
†P. europaeus Gaillard, 1908
Other species[2]
†P. gaillardi Crusafont & Villalta, 1955 †P. major Weidig, 2006 †P. insolitipes Mayr & Kitchener, 2022 †P. kelleri Mayr, 2002 †P. wyomingensis Weidig, 2006

Distribution

P. insolitipes fossils are known from Walton-on-the-Naze, a site stratigraphically located in the Walton Member of the London Clay Formation of southeastern England.^[4]