Columbidae

Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They feed largely on plant matter, feeding on seeds (granivory), fruit (frugivory), and foliage (folivory).

Columbidae

JJ Harrison ( https://tiny.jjharrison.com.au/t/3rUZckpXLJTJuAko ) · 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
Sits inside
ColumbiformesPBDB
Diet
frugivore, granivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 72 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 744 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 744 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 744 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 744 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 11 of 744 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 6 of 744 occurrencesPleistocene — about 291 of 744 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 3 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 4 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 7 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 724 occurrences72.2 Mya11.7 ka85 Mya0 Mya

744 occurrences of Columbidae 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

744 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

19 formations

facies à Congeria — 45.05°N, 7.93°EVogel River Series — 3.22°S, 35.21°EVogel River Series — 3.25°S, 35.20°EBannockburn — 44.91°S, 169.86°ELaguna de Tagua Tagua — 34.50°S, 71.17°WNubia — 16.25°N, 33.75°EVarswater — 32.98°S, 18.15°EKromdraai — 26.00°S, 27.75°ENamba — 31.23°S, 140.23°ETsurushi — 38.01°N, 138.27°EYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WNuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°WHillgrove — 45.13°S, 170.97°EWhenuataru Tuff — 44.24°S, 176.24°WCalvert — 38.61°N, 76.52°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WTurlock Lake — 37.06°N, 120.20°WBlack Creek — 35.46°N, 77.68°WLondon Clay — 50.78°N, 0.65°WAlachua — 29.70°N, 82.60°W

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The named rock units Columbidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 719 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

2,934 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 399 sites for Columbidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

185 references

Each of the 744 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. 173 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 Columbidae

Credit
JJ Harrison ( https://tiny.jjharrison.com.au/t/3rUZckpXLJTJuAko )
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
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

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 itColumbiformes through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Illiger 1811