Ciconia
Ciconia is a genus of birds in the stork family. Six of the seven living species occur in the Old World, but the maguari stork has a South American range. In addition, fossils suggest that Ciconia storks were somewhat more common in the tropical Americas in prehistoric times.

Mindaugas Urbonas from Lithuanian wikipedia ( Profile , Advento kalendoriai , Kalėdiniai žaisliukai , Dietistės pasla… · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
- CiconiidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
36 occurrences of Ciconia 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
36 occurrences- Miocene8%
- Pliocene9%
- Pleistocene80%
- Holocene3%
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
11 formations
- Caloosahatchee Formation2
- Okeechobee Formation2
- Varswater Formation1
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group1
- Pungo River Formation1
- American Falls Lake Bed E Formation1
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The named rock units Ciconia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ciconia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ciconia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,362 taxa- Podilymbus podiceps15 sites
- Equus12 sites
- Branta canadensis11 sites
- Fulica americana11 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus11 sites
- Ardea herodias10 sites
- Buteo9 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis9 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus9 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo9 sites
- Aenocyon dirus8 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos8 sites
- Bubo virginianus8 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala8 sites
- Mammut americanum8 sites
- Teratornis merriami8 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos7 sites
- Aythya collaris7 sites
- Dasypus bellus7 sites
- Mareca americana7 sites
- Palaeolama mirifica7 sites
- Paramylodon harlani7 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis7 sites
- Anas6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Ciconia, 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
28 references- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula4
- A middle Pleistocene bird community from Saint Lucie County, Florida2
- Miocene and Pliocene birds from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina2
- A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California2
- Le Loess a bancs durcis de Saint-Vallier (Drome) et sa faune de Mammiferes Villafranchiens2
- The fossil Birds of California2
- Huanglong Cave: A Late Pleistocene human fossil site in Hubei Province, China1
- Presence of the Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita (L.) during the Holocene in the Ardèche valley, southern France1
- The late Pleistocene fossil avian remains from Grotta dei Fiori, Carbonia (SW Sardinia, Italy)1
- An early Irvingtonian avifauna from Leisey Shell Pit, Florida1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- Two new late Blancan avifaunas from Florida and the extinction of wetland birds in the Plio-Pleistocene1
Each of the 36 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. 16 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 content2
Picture of Ciconia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mindaugas Urbonas from Lithuanian wikipedia ( Profile , Advento kalendoriai , Kalėdiniai žaisliukai , Dietistės pasla…
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ciconia”
- 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 itCiconiidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brisson 1760