New Information on the Late Pleistocene Birds from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo León, Mexico

Abstract

We report 90 bird bones representing 18 species from recent excavations at San Josecito Gave, Nuevo Le6n, Mexico. The new material increases the avifauna of this rich late Pleistocene locality from 52 to 62 species. Eight of the 10 newly recorded taxa are extant; each is either of temperate rather than tropical affinities (such as the American Woodcock Scolopax minor and Pinyon Jay Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) or is very wide- spread in its modem distribution. The two extinct taxa are a stork (Ciconia sp. or Mycteria sp.) and Geococcyx californianus conklingi, a large temporal subspecies of the Greater Road- runner. In this region of the Sierra Madre Oriental (about lat. 24N, long. lOOW, elev. 2,000-2,600 m). the late Pleistocene avifauna was a mixture of species that to&y prefer coniferous or pine-oak forests/woodlands, grasslands/savannas, and wetlands. As with var- ious late Pleistocene plant and mammal communities of the United States and Mexico, no clear modem analog exists for the late Pleistocene avifauna of San Josecito Cave.