Unexpected Climate Revealed by a Middle Holocene Avian Assemblage from Fuerteventura (Canary Islands)

A group of avian species, mostly small passerines, allows us to reconstruct the landscape and general climate of an area of Fuerteventura prior to the arrival of the first humans. Many of the bird species are typical of forest environments and the edges of bodies of water, conditions incompatible with the current hot and arid climate. The record of a high number of quail as well as small flying passerines surely implies the concurrence of two types of diurnal birds of prey, hunters on the ground and in flight, respectively. No trace of the abundant Puffinus holeae has been found, which evidently occupied a habitat very different from those in the north and interior of the island.