Scientists identified a new extinct duck species, Amazonetta cubensis, from one complete fossil arm bone found in El Abrón Cave in western Cuba. The 2025 description places it in the same genus as the living Brazilian teal, Amazonetta brasiliensis, which the study identifies as its closest living relative.
What was found in the Cuban cave?
The fossil is a complete left humerus—the upper wing bone—catalogued as specimen PIN 5781/40. It was recovered from Late Pleistocene strata at El Abrón Cave in Pinar del Río province, western Cuba. The taxonomic paper reports only this holotype, so the discovery is not a skeleton or a set of bones from multiple birds.
Nikita Zelenkov formally described the species in a paper published in Zootaxa on 9 May 2025. Its scientific name is Amazonetta cubensis; “Cuban teal” is a suggested common name.
How does the fossil compare with the Brazilian teal?
The study places the fossil bird in Amazonetta and names the South American Brazilian teal, A. brasiliensis, as its closest living taxon. That relationship does not establish that the Cuban species was a direct ancestor of the living teal.
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Zelenkov distinguished the fossil humerus from the Brazilian teal’s by several features of its shape:
- The shaft is thinner.
- The bicipital crest is more steeply oriented.
- The dorsal tubercle projects less proximally.
- The pectoralis imprint is smaller.
These anatomical differences underpin the description of a distinct species; the available specimen does not by itself establish the bird’s behavior, diet, or habitat.
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What does the discovery tell us about Cuba’s fossil birds?
Zelenkov’s abstract calls the specimen only the third fossil anseriform bird find on Cuba. Anseriforms are the bird group that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The author says the find extends the known Late Quaternary distribution of Amazonetta, writing that it “for the first time indicates a wider distribution of Amazonetta ducks in the Late Quaternary.”
The paper places the fossil in Late Pleistocene strata. A 13 May 2025 news report gives a more specific range of 18,000–11,000 years ago, but that figure is not established in the journal record cited here, so it should be treated as the news report’s account rather than a confirmed dating result.
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The study also raises the possibility that South American birds influenced Greater Antillean bird communities. That is a proposed interpretation, not a demonstrated explanation of how this duck reached Cuba.
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Sources
- Nikita Zelenkov, “A new duck (Aves: Anatidae) from the Upper Pleistocene of Cuba,” Zootaxa 5633(1), 139–150 (9 May 2025).
- Emily Carter, “Scientists Discover Bones of New Extinct Species Hidden in Cuban Cave,” Indian Defence Review (13 May 2025).
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