Strigogyps is an extinctgenus of prehistoric bird from the Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene of France and Germany. It was probably around the size of a large chicken or a guan, weighing not quite. Apparently, as indicated by the ratio of lengths of wing to leg bones, S. sapea was flightless. Its legs were not adapted to running, so it seems to have had a walking lifestyle similar to trumpeters. Unlike other Cariamiformes, which appear to have been mostly carnivorous, Strigogyps specimens suggest a herbivorous diet.
The type species of Strigogyps is S. dubius, which was described by Gaillard in 1908. It was initially placed in the owl orderStrigiformes and considered to be a sophiornithid. S. dubius is based on a single tibiotarsus from the Late Eocene to Early OligoceneQuercy phosphorites of France. This tibiotarsus was destroyed in World War II during the bombing of Munich, but casts remain. In 1939, Gaillard described a second species of Strigogyps, S. minor, based on a humerus, two coracoids, and two carpometacarpi, also from Quercy. In 1981, Mourer-Chauviré redescribed S. minor as Ameghinornis minor, the only member of the new phorusrhacidsubfamily, Ameghinornithinae. Ameghinornis was later placed in its own family, Ameghinornithidae. In 1987, Peters named another monospecific genus of ameghinornithid, Aenigmavis sapea, based on a nearly complete skeleton from the Middle Eocene Messel pit of Germany. Mayr found Aenigmavis to be a species of Strigogyps, S. sapea, and found Ameghinornis to be synonymous with S. dubius, as they both came from Quercy, and are almost identicalexcept for coracoids and carpometacarpi of Ameghinornis, which Mayr found to be unlike other ameghinornithids, and probably from an idiornithid. In 1935, Lambrecht described a new New World vulture, Eocathartes robustus, and a hornbill, Geiseloceros robustus, from the Middle Eocene of the Geisel Valley of Germany. Each was based on a single specimen, and they were found very close together. Mayr found them to be synonymous and a species of Strigogyps, S. robustus. Recent studies have found Strigogyps to be a more basal member of Cariamae, and not particularly close to the phorusrhachids. Salmila robusta, another bird from Messel was found to be more basal than Strigogyps, and the cladecomposed ofSalmila and Cariamae to be the sister taxon to Psophiidae within a monophyleticGruiformes. Fragmentary remains from the Palaeocene and/or Eocene of England and North America have also been suggested to be phorusrhachids, but, like Strigogyps, they probably are not.
