Crax fossil map
Where fossils of Crax have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 0 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 0 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
| Group | Prehistoric birds |
|---|---|
| Lived | 0.0117 million years ago to the present (Holocene) |
| Periods | Quaternary |
| Family | Cracidae |
| Named by | Linnaeus 1758 |
| Fossil records | 1 occurrences at 1 locations (PBDB) |
| Found in | Venezuela |
| Rock formations | txn:39331 |
About Crax
Crax is a genus of curassows in the order Galliformes, a clade of large, heavy-bodied, ground-feeding birds. They are known from tropical South America with one species, the great curassow, ranging northwards through Central America as far as Mexico. The curassows in this genus are noted for their sexual dimorphism; males are more boldly coloured than females and have facial ornamentation such as knobs and wattles. They are also characterised by curly crests and contrastingly-coloured crissa (the area around the cloaca). Crax curassows probably originated as a distinct lineage during the Late Miocene. During the Messinian, the ancestral Crax split into two lineages separated by the Colombian Andes and the Cordillera de MĂ©rida which uplifted at that time. The northern lineage radiated into the great, blue-billed, and yellow-knobbed curassows, while the four southern species evolved as they became separated by the uplifting of various mountain ranges.
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Crax (revision 1368217438), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q869569.
