Devincenzia

Devincenzia is an extinct genus of giant flightless predatory birds in the family Phorusrhacidae or "terror birds" that lived during the Early Miocene (Deseadan) Fray Bentos Formation of Uruguay and Late Miocene (Huayquerian) Ituzaingó Formation to Early Pliocene (Montehermosan) of Argentina. The type species D. pozzi was formerly known as Onactornis pozzi. It stood about tall, making it one of the largest Phorusrhacids and carnivorous birds known. The generic name Devincenzia comes from Uruguayan museum director and zoologist Garibaldi Devincenzi (1882-1943) and the specific name of D. gallinali comes from Alejandro Gallinal, another Uruguayan scientist. The specific name of D. pozzi was after the lead taxidermist at the museum, Antonio Pozzi. In 1931, a very large distal right tarsometatarsus associated with a ungual phalanx from digit II, was described by the Uruguayan Paleontologist Lucas Kraglievich as a new species of Phororhacos (a misspelling of Phorusrhacos), P. pozzi and deposited at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia in Buenos Aires, Argentina under specimen numbers MACN-6554 and 6681. The fossils had been found in Lower Pliocene rock layers at El Brete in Cordoba, Argentina, specifically from the Mesopotamian. Later in the same paper, Kraglievich named a subspecies of Phororhacos (Phorusrhacos) longissimus mendocinus based on a partial proximal right femur from the Late Miocene Huayquerías Formation in Mendoza, Argentina. The subspecies has since been synonymized with Devincenzia pozzi. Kraglievich also referred a synphysis fragment to Phororhacos (Phorusrhacos) platygnathus, but the fossil has since been referred to Devincenzia pozzi. The next year, Kraglievich named a new genus and species of Phorusrhacid from Argentina based on a partial right tarsometatarsus of a juvenile individual (MNHN-M-189), naming it Devincenzia gallinali. The origin of the fossil is unknown, with Kraglievich initially speculating that it was from Uruguay, but the coloration corroborates with that of Patagonian fossils from the Miocene.