Cygnus cygnus
The whooper swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan.

Andreas Trepte · 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- Also called
- whooper swanPBDB
- Sits inside
- CygnusPBDB
- Diet
- folivore, granivorePBDB, for Anserinae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anserinae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Anserinae
- Mass
- 331 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
3 occurrences of Cygnus cygnus 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
3 occurrences- Pleistocene67%
- Holocene33%
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.
Cygnus cygnus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cygnus cygnus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
63 taxa- Anas3 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos2 sites
- Anatidae2 sites
- Alca torda1 site
- Anser1 site
- Anser albifrons1 site
- Anser anser1 site
- Arenaria interpres1 site
- Arvicola1 site
- Aves1 site
- Aythya nyroca1 site
- Batrachia1 site
- Branta1 site
- Branta bernicla1 site
- Bufo bufo1 site
- Bufo viridis1 site
- Bulimus1 site
- Calidris pugnax1 site
- Canis1 site
- Cepphus grylle1 site
- Clausilia1 site
- Columba palumbus1 site
- Corvidae1 site
- Corvus corone1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Cygnus cygnus, 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
3 references- The fossil bird associations from the early Middle Pleistocene of the Ragusa province (SE Sicily, Italy)1
- Bird bones from Jettböle I, a site in the Neolithic Åland archipelago in the northern Baltic1
- On gigantic land-tortoises and a small freshwater species from the ossiferous caverns of Malta, together with a list of their fossil fauna; and a note on chelonian remains from the rock-cavities of Gibraltar1
Each 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Cygnus cygnus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Andreas Trepte
- 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
- 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 itCygnus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)