''Cathartornis'' is an ancient bird of the

Teratornithidae Teratornithidae is an extinct family of very large birds of prey that lived in North and South America from the Late Oligocene to the Late Pleistocene. They include some of the largest known flying birds. Taxonomy Teratornithidae are related t ...

family. It lived somewhere between 23 million years (

Miocene Epoch The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" ...

) and 10,000 years (

Pleistocene Epoch The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

) ago. The only evidence of the bird's existence is a few bones. Its remains were documented in 1910. ''Cathartornis'' was described on the basis of 2

tarsometatarsi The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...

, 1 complete and 1 containing only the distal end, recovered from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. Since then, no other fossils have officially been referred to the taxon, though some fossils assigned to ''

Teratornis ''Teratornis'' (Greek: "wonder" (teretos), "bird" (ornis)) was a genus of huge North American birds of prey – the best-known of the teratorns - of which, two species are known to have existed: ''Teratornis merriami'' and ''Teratornis woodburnen ...

'' could be from ''Cathartornis'' and unpublished remains have been mentioned.Campbell, K. E., & Stenger, A. T. (2002). A new teratorn (Aves; Teratornithidae) from the Upper Pleistocene of Oregon.

References

Cenozoic birds Teratornithidae {{Ciconiiformes-stub