Oscar Paulino Arredondo de la Mata (18 July 1918 – 20 July 2001) was a Cuban paleontologist. He described a number of birds and mammals of the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

Period from fossils obtained from Cuban caves. He has been called the "father of Cuban vertebrate paleontology". Oscar Arredondo was born in Havana in the Quarter of the Pillar. He lived in that area until 1955. Born in a family of ordinary means with six other siblings, he studied at the local public school (number 33). He took an interest in natural history early in life and learnt about animals on his own. In 1936 he sang with

tango music Tango is a style of music in or time that originated among European and African immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay (collectively, the " Rioplatenses"). It is traditionally played on a solo guitar, guitar duo, or an ensemble, kn ...

groups for various radio stations and was an actor in the local theatre. In 1942 he worked at a local hair salon apart from selling fruits and as being a representative for theater workers. He continued his personal studies and sketched various local birds. In 1945 he took an interest in exploring caves and began to explore fossils found in the caves of Cuba. In order to join the expeditions of the Speleological Society of Cuba, he began to work as a postman, a job he held for the 36 years before retiring in 1984. Arredondo's work on paleontology was mostly on the birds and mammals of the Quaternary, and he described a Cuban condor (he placed it in the genus ''Sarcoramphus'', but it was later identified as ''Titanohierax borrasi''), an eagle, several owls, including the giant ''

Ornimegalonyx The Cuban giant owl or giant cursorial owl (''Ornimegalonyx'') is an extinct genus of giant owl that measured in height. It is closely related to the many species of living owls of the genus ''Strix''.Feduccia, Alan (1996) "The Origin and Evoluti ...

'' and a

Teratorn 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 ...

. He wrote both scientific (nearly 134) and popular science articles. Several species were named after him including ''Pulsatrix arredondoi'' Brodkorb (1968), ''Capromys arroundondoi'' Varona (1984), ''Cerion (Strophiops) arroundondoi'' Jaime (1984) and ''Solenodon arredondoi'' Morgan & Ottenwalder, (1993).

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Ornimegalonyx
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arredondo, Oscar Vertebrate paleontologists Cuban biologists 20th-century zoologists People from Havana 1918 births 2001 deaths 20th-century geologists