The Late Pleistocene Avifauna of La Carolina, Southwestern Ecuador

Abstract

A collection of fossils from the late Pleistocene site known as La Carolina, located on the arid Santa Elena Peninsula of southwestern Ecuador, contains 53 species of birds, representing 16 families and 42 genera, including 7 extinct species previously recorded only from the Talara Tar Seeps of northwestern Peru. New species of Buteo and Oreopholus are described. The genus Protoconurns Spillman is synonymized with Aratinga. Seventy-two percent of the species recorded from La Carolina were also recorded from the Talara Tar Seeps. The resemblance between the two avifaunas suggests a similarity in age, habitat, and climatological conditions at the two sites at the time of deposition. Evidence suggests that during glacial periods the currently arid Santa Elena Peninsula was part of a broad, forested coastal savanna extending from central Ecuador south to northern Peru.