Kingdom Animalia Suborder Passeri Genus Corvus | Order Passeriformes Family Corvidae Rank Species | |
Similar Puerto Rican quail‑dove, Hova gallinule, Chatham raven, Dow's puffin, New Zealand raven | ||
The Puerto Rican crow, also known as Corvus pumilis, is an extinct crow species in the family Corvidae. It lived on Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Little is known about its habitat, but it possibly died out after the colonization of humans on these islands.
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Characteristics
The only source of its existence are its subfossil ulna. It was 68 mm (2.7 in) long and lies in size between the former sympatric C. leucognaphalus with 76–78 mm (3.0–3.1 in) and the hispaniolical C. palmarum with 62 mm (2.4 in).
Habitat
Residues of the crow were found on Puerto Rico and on the island St. Croix, which belongs to the United States Virgin Islands.
Little is known about its habitat. As it existed together with C. leucognaphalus on Puerto Rico, it possibly occupied a different ecological niche as the latter and was perhaps rather common in the island lowland.
Classification and taxonomy
The earliest residues of the crow were found in 1916 in the karst cave Cueva San Miguel near Morovis, Puerto Rico. It was a right ulna (AMNH 4925), which Alexander Wetmore described in 1920 as a holotype for his first description of the species C. pumilis. Wetmore did not comment on the etymology of the epithet pumilis, which means "dwarfish" in Latin. There are no insights on its relationships with other species of its genus within and beyond the Caribbean.
Extinction
C. pumilis possibly disappeared very early. In Puerto Rico it is only known from lagerstätten before the colonizations; on St. Croix it was found on a hearth from the Pre-Columbian era. The crow possibly died out before the settlement of Europeans in the Caribbean