Aphelocoma insularis

The island scrub jay, also known as the island jay or Santa Cruz jay, is a bird in the genus Aphelocoma, which is endemic to Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Southern California. Of the over 500 breeding bird species in the continental U.S. and Canada, it is the only insular endemic landbird species, meaning it is restricted to a geographical island.

Aphelocoma insularis

Polinova · 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
island scrub-jayPBDB
Sits inside
AphelocomaPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Corvidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Corvidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Corvidae
Mass
111.2 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Aphelocoma insularis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

2 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

Tecolote — 34.01°N, 120.17°W

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The named rock units Aphelocoma insularis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aphelocoma insularis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aphelocoma insularis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

73 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Aphelocoma insularis, 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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Aphelocoma insularis

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

No 3D scan of Aphelocoma insularis 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 itAphelocoma through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Henshaw 1886