''Wingegyps'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of tiny condor from the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch withi ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. The type species ''W. cartellei'' was described from cave deposits in the states of

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-larges ...

and

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literall ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. It was close related to the genera '' Vultur'' and ''

Gymnogyps ''Gymnogyps'' is a genus of New World vultures in the family Cathartidae. There are five known species in the genus, with only one being extant, the California condor. Fossil species *''Gymnogyps amplus'' was first described by L. H. Miller in ...

'', particularly the former.Alvarenga, H. M. F.; Olson, S. L. (2004) A new genus of tiny condor from the Pleistocene of Brazil (Aves: Vulturidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117 (1): 1-9. The genus is named after Danish ornithologist

Oluf Winge Gustav Oluf Bang Winge (14 May 1855 Copenhagen – 16 February 1889)Collin, J. (1905) Winge, Gustav Oluf Bang. In: Bricka, C. F. (ed.) Dansk biografisk Lexikon, tillige omfattende, Norge for tidsrummet 1537-1814, XIX. BIND: 34. was a Danish zoolog ...

, who first described the remains in 1888, without attributing a new scientific name.

References

Cathartidae Quaternary birds of South America Pleistocene animals of South America Ensenadan Lujanian Pleistocene Brazil Fossils of Brazil Fossil taxa described in 2004 Prehistoric bird genera Extinct monotypic bird genera {{paleo-bird-stub