Aquila

Aquila is the genus of true eagles. The genus name is Latin for "eagle", possibly derived from aquilus, "dark in colour". It is often united with the sea eagles, buteos, and other more heavyset Accipitridae, but more recently they appear to be less distinct from the slenderer accipitrine hawks than previously believed. Eagles are not a natural group but denote essentially any bird of prey large enough to hunt sizeable vertebrate prey.

Aquila

Rocky · CC BY 2.0 · 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
eaglePBDB
Sits inside
AccipitridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Accipitridae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Accipitridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Accipitridae

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 4 of 73 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 73 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 63 of 73 occurrencesPleistocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.8–9.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.1–8.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences8.4–7.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences7.7–7.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.0–6.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.3–5.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.6–4.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.9–4.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences4.2–3.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences3.5–2.8 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences2.8–2.1 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.1–1.4 Mya — about 6 occurrences1.4–698 ka Mya — about 8 occurrences698 ka–0 Mya — about 50 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka20.9 Mya0 Mya

73 occurrences of Aquila 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

73 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

10 formations

Gabal Silsila — 24.77°N, 32.95°EXiacaowan — 33.45°N, 118.20°EShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WGila Conglomerate — 32.69°N, 109.45°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WKuyal'nikian — 46.46°N, 30.73°EManix — 34.80°N, 117.00°WBecerra — 19.90°N, 99.13°WChalk Hills — 42.73°N, 115.87°WDetritic-Carbonated Unit of Subirats — 41.42°N, 1.81°E

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The named rock units Aquila has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 63 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aquila and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aquila and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,500 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 65 sites for Aquila, 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

47 references

Each of the 73 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. 35 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 content3

Picture of Aquila

Credit
Rocky
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Aquila verreauxii · l-jz:JZ:1

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itAccipitridae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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