Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus
The Mauritius starling is an extinct species of starling, described in 2014 by Julian P. Hume, based on subfossils from Mauritius. The holotype mandible was discovered in 1904, but was hidden in a museum drawer for over a hundred years, hence the genus name. The Mauritius starling was shown to be closer to the Rodrigues starling than to the hoopoe starling of Réunion.

Julian P. Hume · 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
- Mauritius starlingPBDB
- Sits inside
- CryptopsarPBDB
- 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 most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
3 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
20 taxa- Alectroenas nitidissimus2 sites
- Aphanapteryx bonasia2 sites
- Hypsipetes olivaceus2 sites
- Nesoenas cicur2 sites
- Alopochen mauritianus1 site
- Anas theodori1 site
- Circus maillardi1 site
- Columba thiriouxi1 site
- Egretta garzetta dimorpha1 site
- Foudia rubra1 site
- Fulica newtonii1 site
- Lophopsittacus mauritianus1 site
- Microcarbo africanus1 site
- Nesoenas mayeri1 site
- Numenius phaeopus1 site
- Nycticorax mauritianus1 site
- Otus sauzieri1 site
- Papasula abbotti1 site
- Pteropus1 site
- Raphus cucullatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Julian P. Hume
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cryptopsar ischyrhynchus 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 itCryptopsar through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hume 2014