Gw mau tau Fossil record and evolution dari Nasar Raja. Jelasin dalam bahasa melayu

The genus Sarcoramphus, which today contains only the King Vulture, had a wider distribution in the past. The Kern Vulture, Sarcoramphus kernense, lived in southwestern North America during the mid-Pliocene (Piacenzian), some 3.5-2.5 million years ago). It was a little-known component of the Blancan/Delmontian faunal stages. The only material is a broken distal humerus fossil, found at Pozo Creek, Kern County, California. As per Loye H. Miller's original description, "[c]ompared with [S. papa] the type conforms in general form and curvature except for its greater size and robustness." The large span in time between the existence of the two species suggests that the Kern Vulture might be distinct, but as the fossil is somewhat damaged and rather non-diagnostic, even assignment to this genus is not completely certain.

During the Late Pleistocene, another species probably assignable to the genus, Sarcoramphus fisheri, occurred in Peru. This would have been the chronospecies ancestral to the present-day King Vulture, or possibly a sister species. Few avian species of today evolved after that time, and of those that did most are small, short-lived Passeriformes.

A supposed King Vulture relative from Quaternary cave deposits on Cuba turned out to be bones of the eagle-sized hawk Buteogallus borrasi (formerly in Titanohierax).

Little can be said of the evolutionary history of the genus, mainly because remains of other Neogene New World vultures are usually younger or even more fragmentary. The teratorns held sway over the ecological niche of the extant group especially in North America. The Kern Vulture seems to slightly precede the main bout of the Great American Interchange, and it is notable that the living diversity of New World vultures seems to have originated out of Central America. The Kern Vulture would then seem to represent a northwards divergence possibly sister to the S. fisheri - S. papa lineage. Be that as it may, the fossil record, though scant, supports the theory that the ancestral King Vultures and South American Condors separated at least some 5 mya.