Anser caerulescens

The snow goose is a species of goose native to North America. Both white and dark morphs exist, the latter often known as blue goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The species was previously placed in the genus Chen, but is now typically included in the "gray goose" genus Anser.

Anser caerulescens

Rhododendrites · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
snow goosePBDB
Sits inside
AnserPBDB
Diet
folivore, granivorePBDB, for Anserinae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Anserinae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Anserinae
Mass
2.63 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 2 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 210 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 15 of 31 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 16 of 31 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 17 occurrences14 ka – 11.7 ka710 ka0 Mya

31 occurrences of Anser caerulescens on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

31 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

American Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°W

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The named rock units Anser caerulescens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 30 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

467 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Anser caerulescens, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

17 references

Each of the 31 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 5 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Anser caerulescens

Credit
Rhododendrites
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anser caerulescens was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAnser through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)