caracaras

Predictably, I cannot help but find the idea that condors, caracaras, turacos and hoatzins are all close kin of phorusrhacids highly appealing, but it does all seem very vague and sadly lacking in good character support.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

Can see some similarity between seriemas and Polyborus - type caracaras ...

Giant hoatzins of doom Darren Naish 2006

He further suggested that falcons ‘probably represent a raptorial branch of this radiation’ (p. 144), a suggestion presumably based on the anatomy of caracaras.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

Predictably, I cannot help but find the idea that condors, caracaras, turacos and hoatzins are all close kin of phorusrhacids highly appealing, but it does all seem very vague and sadly lacking in good character support.

Giant hoatzins of doom Darren Naish 2006

So, as appealing as it might be to imagine that condors, caracaras, turacos and hoatzins are all close kin of phorusrhacids, it really is all vague and sadly lacking in any sort of good character support.

Goodbye, my giant predatory, cursorial, flightless hoatzin Darren Naish 2006

He further suggested that falcons ‘probably represent a raptorial branch of this radiation’ (p. 144), a suggestion presumably based on the anatomy of caracaras.

Giant hoatzins of doom Darren Naish 2006

So, as appealing as it might be to imagine that condors, caracaras, turacos and hoatzins are all close kin of phorusrhacids, it really is all vague and sadly lacking in any sort of good character support.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

(Soundbite of striated caracaras) Mr. MEIBURG: Three eggs, three eggs, three eggs.

Bird Sounds Recorded from Far Afield 2007

(Soundbite of laughter) (Soundbite of striated caracaras) Mr. MEIBURG: It's exhilarating to be in the presence of such abundance, but it also kind of poignant to me.

Bird Sounds Recorded from Far Afield 2007

(Soundbite of striated caracaras) Mr. MEIBURG: Here at the Steeple Jason colony, where the chicks and eggs of the albatrosses and penguins are an easy target, the caracaras is nest along the colony's edge among tops of a giant grass called tusset (ph) grass that can grow almost 10 feet high.

Bird Sounds Recorded from Far Afield 2007