Aythya marila
The greater scaup, just scaup in Europe or, colloquially, "bluebill" in North America, is a mid-sized diving duck, larger than the closely related lesser scaup and tufted duck. It spends the summer months breeding in Iceland, east across Scandinavia, northern Russia and Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada. During the winter, it migrates south to the coasts of Europe, eastern Asia, and North America.

Chuck Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife · 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
- greater scaupPBDB
- Sits inside
- AythyaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Anatinae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anatinae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Anatinae
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
8 occurrences of Aythya marila 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
8 occurrences- Pleistocene25%
- Holocene75%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Aythya marila has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
223 taxa- Phalacrocorax6 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos5 sites
- Anatinae5 sites
- Anser rossii5 sites
- Anserinae5 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos5 sites
- Melanitta5 sites
- Numenius americanus5 sites
- Phalacrocorax auritus5 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus5 sites
- Uria5 sites
- Aechmophorus4 sites
- Anas4 sites
- Antigone canadensis4 sites
- Bucephala albeola4 sites
- Buteo4 sites
- Larus4 sites
- Limosa fedoa4 sites
- Podiceps4 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis4 sites
- Tringa semipalmata4 sites
- Anser caerulescens3 sites
- Ardea herodias3 sites
- Aythya affinis3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Aythya marila, 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
3 references- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna6
- An early Irvingtonian avifauna from Leisey Shell Pit, Florida1
- A Pleistocene avifauna from Jalisco, Mexico1
Each of the 8 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. 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 content2
Picture of Aythya marila
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Chuck Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Laser scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Aythya Aythya marila · imnh:r:1216
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 itAythya through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1761)