Caprimulgidae

Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. Some New World species are called nighthawks. The English word nightjar originally referred to the European nightjar.

Caprimulgidae

Nigel Voaden from UK · CC BY-SA 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
Sits inside
CaprimulgiformesPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 48 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 0 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesEocene — about 4 of 32 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 32 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPleistocene — about 19 of 32 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.8–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–0 Mya — about 27 occurrences48.07 Mya11.7 ka57 Mya0 Mya

32 occurrences of Caprimulgidae 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

32 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

3 formations

Perrière — 44.38°N, 1.43°ENanjemoy — 38.28°N, 77.37°WQuercy Phosphorites — 44.27°N, 1.63°E

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The named rock units Caprimulgidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Caprimulgidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Caprimulgidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,178 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Caprimulgidae, 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

27 references

Each of the 32 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. 15 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 Caprimulgidae

Credit
Nigel Voaden from UK
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Caprimulgidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itCaprimulgiformes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vigors 1825