Buteogallus irpus Suarez & Olson 2021
Creators: name: Suárez, William
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Aves
Accipitriformes
Accipitridae
Buteogallus
Buteogallus irpus

description: 19. † Buteogallus irpus Suárez & Olson, 2021
Wolf Hawk (Gavilán Lobo)
Buteogallus irpus Suárez & Olson, 2021, Bull. Brit. Orn. Cl. 141: 259.
Titanohierax gloveralleni: Woods 1980: 8 (part) [Hispaniola].
Titanohierax sp.: Olson & Hilgartner 1982: 28 [Hispaniola].
Amplibuteo sp.: Suárez & Arredondo 1997: 100 [Cuba].
Amplibuteo woodwardi: Suárez 2004a: 121 [Cuba].
History.— 24 April 1978: Charles Woods (UF) collects the holotype in a cave deposit in the Dominican Republic (Suárez & Olson 2021: 260; see Olson & Hilgartner 1982: 28). July 1980: material of large Accipitridae from Hispaniola referred to Titanohierax gloveralleni Wetmore by Woods (1980: 8). 5 August 1982: holotype identified as ‘ Titanohierax sp. ’ by Olson & Hilgartner (1982: 28). 2 March 1995: paratype collected in a cave deposit in western Cuba (Suárez & Olson 2021: 259; see Suárez 2004a: 121). Winter 1997: mentioned for Cuba as ‘ Amplibuteo sp. ’ by Suárez & Arredondo (1997: 100–101). April 2004: Cuban material compared with continental fossil taxa and identified as A. woodwardi L. Miller, but shows some differences interpreted as individual variation (Suárez 2004a: 122). 10 September 2021: original description of Buteogallus irpus published (Suárez & Olson 2021) based on fossils from Hispaniola and Cuba, with the extinct genus Amplibuteo Campbell, 1979, treated as synonym of Buteogallus.
Holotype.—Left tarsometatarsus lacking proximal end, USNM PAL 299573 (Suárez & Olson 2021: figs. 1: A [anterior], B [medial], C [distal], D [posterior], E [lateral], 2: A [anterior]). Collected on 24 April 1978 by Charles Woods, under 60 cm of red earth, at the type locality (Suárez & Olson 2021; see also Olson & Hilgartner 1982: 28).
Other material.— Partial skeleton: WS 365 (see Suárez 2004a: Figs. 1–2), including: one cervical (axis) and three thoracic vertebrae, seven fragments of ribs, fragmentary pelvis (fig. 2E [lateral]), proximal fragmentary right humerus (fig. 2A [palmar], B [anconal]), distal fragments of left humerus (fig. 2C [palmar]), segment of shaft of left ulna (fig. 2D [palmar]), left fragmentary femur without distal end (fig. 2G [anterior]), proximal and distal fragmentary ends of right femur (fig. 2F–F’ [anterior]), shaft of left tibiotarsus (fig. 2I [posterior]), proximal right fibula (fig. 2H [internal]), left tarsometatarsus lacking inner calcaneal ridge, part of the metatarsal facet, wing of trochlea II, and posterior surface of trochlea III (fig. 1A [anterior], fig. 2J [anterior], K [proximal], L [posterior], Suárez & Olson 2008: fig. 1C [anterior], 2021: fig. 2B [anterior]), left digit I, phalanx 1 (fig. 2M [dorsal]) and phalanx 2 (fig. 2N [lateral]), left digit III, phalanx 2 and phalanx 3, right digit III, phalanx 4 (fig. 2O [lateral]), right digit IV, phalanx 4. Collected on 2 March 1995 by WS. Cited figures are from Suárez (2004a), other than where indicated.
Type locality.—Cueva de las Abejas (18°01’N, 71°67’W; elevation c. 20 m), near Cabo Rojo, 8 km south-east of Pedernales, Pedernales province, Dominican Republic. Quaternary, probably late Pleistocene, but not directly dated (Suárez & Olson 2021: 260; see Olson & Hilgartner 1982: 28, Steadman et al. 2019: 321).
Distribution.—Cave deposit in west Cuba (see Appendix). Artemisa. Caimito: ASA ([Sandoval III low deposit, see Suárez 2000b: 67–68] Suárez & Arredondo 1997: 100–101 [‘ Amplibuteo sp. ’], Suárez 2004a: 121 [‘ Amplibuteo woodwardi ’], Suárez & Olson 2021: 259 [‘ Buteogallus irpus, sp. nov. ’]).
Direct 14 C dating.—None.
Notes.—Very rare, known from a single cave deposit in west Cuba and the type locality in south-central Hispaniola (Suárez & Olson 2021). B. irpus possesses a tarsometatarsus within the size range of the extinct continental species B. woodwardi (L. Miller, 1911) and B. hibbardi (Campbell, 1979), but relatively shorter and more robust, with reduced trochleae (Suárez & Olson 2021). Although currently synonyms of the genus Buteogallus, both Harpyhaliaetus Lafresnaye and Heterospizias Sharpe were incorrectly cited in place of the former by Suárez & Olson (2021: 259) when listing characters 9 and 10 of ‘ Amplibuteo ’ described by Campbell (1979: 77). These characters of the distal tarsometatarsus (trochleae) are of specific value and their presence is variable in living and extinct species currently in Buteogallus, as partially described by Campbell (1979: 74). The extinct genus Titanohierax, described from the Bahamas (Wetmore 1937) and currently unknown outside those islands (Suárez & Olson 2008, Suárez 2020a), was erroneously considered to be more widely distributed in the West Indies (cf. Woods 1980, Olson & Hilgartner 1982, Morgan 1977a,b, 1994, Morgan et al. 2019). See Buteogallus borrasi. A re-evaluation of some fossils representing large members of Accipitridae from continental deposits in North America probably will shed more light on the taxonomy and distribution of T. gloveralleni.
description: Published as part of Suárez, William, 2022, Catalogue of Cuban fossil and subfossil birds, pp. 247-248 in Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 142 (1) on pages 38-39, DOI: 10.25226/bboc.v142i1.2022.a3, http://zenodo.org/record/13760932