Ardeotis kori
The kori bustard is the largest flying bird native to Africa. It is a member of the bustard family, which all belong to the order Otidiformes and are restricted in distribution to the Old World. It is one of the four species in the large-bodied genus Ardeotis. The male kori bustard may be the heaviest living animal capable of flight.

Charles J. Sharp · 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
- Kori bustardPBDB
- Sits inside
- ArdeotisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 158 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 1.9 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 774 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Ardeotis kori on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
1 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Ardeotis kori and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ardeotis kori and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
13 taxa- Bos1 site
- Ceratotherium simum1 site
- Cichlidae1 site
- Clarias1 site
- Crocodylus1 site
- Equus quagga1 site
- Hippopotamus gorgops1 site
- Kobus ellipsiprymnus1 site
- Kolpochoerus majus1 site
- Palaeoloxodon recki1 site
- Pelusios sinuatus1 site
- Python sebae1 site
- Varanus niloticus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Ardeotis kori, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 content2
Picture of Ardeotis kori
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ardeotis kori · UMMZ:birds:210444
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 itArdeotis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Burchell 1822