Coturnix coturnix

The common quail or European quail is a small ground-nesting game bird in the pheasant family Phasianidae. It is mainly migratory, breeding in the western Palearctic and wintering in Africa and southern India.

Coturnix coturnix

christoph_moning · CC BY 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
common quailPBDB
Sits inside
CoturnixPBDB
Diet
granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae
Mass
8.2 gWikidata

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.

Pliocene — about 0 of 28 occurrencesPleistocene — about 23 of 28 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 5 of 28 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 15 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

28 occurrences of Coturnix coturnix 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

28 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.

Coturnix coturnix and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Coturnix coturnix and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

544 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Coturnix coturnix, 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

23 references

Each of the 28 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. 11 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 Coturnix coturnix

Credit
christoph_moning
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Coturnix coturnix was found in Sketchfab.

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 itCoturnix through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)