American naturalist William Bartram wrote of the black vulture in his 1792 book Bartram's Travels, calling it Vultur atratus "black vuture" or "carrion crow".[2] German ornithologist Johann Matthäus Bechstein formally described it using this name in 1793. The common name "vulture" is derived from the Latin word vulturus, which means "tearer" and is a reference to its feeding habits.[3] The species name, ātrātus, means "clothed in black," from the Latin āter 'dull black'.[4]
Veillot defined the genus Catharista in 1816, listing as its type C. urubu.[5] French naturalist Emmanuel Le Maout placed in its current genus Coragyps (as C. urubu) in 1853.[6] Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has been listed as the author in the past, but he did not publish any official description.[7] The genus name means "raven-vulture",[8] from a contraction of the Greek corax/κόραξ and gyps/γὺψ for the respective birds.[9]
The American Ornithologists' Union used the name Catharista atrata initially, before adopting Veillot's name (Catharista urubu) in their third edition.[10] By their fourth edition, they had adopted the current name.[11]
The black vulture is basal (the earliest offshoot) to a lineage that gave rise to the turkey and greater and lesser yellow-headed vultures, diverging around 12 million years ago.[12]
