Fregilupus varius
The hoopoe starling, also known as the Réunion starling or the Bourbon crested starling, is a species of starling that lived on the Mascarene island of Réunion and became extinct in the 1850s. Its closest relatives were the also-extinct Rodrigues starling and the Mauritius starling from nearby islands, and the three apparently originated in Southeast Asia. The bird was first mentioned during the 17th century and was long thought to be related to the hoopoe, from which its name is derived. Some affinities have been proposed, but it was confirmed as a starling in a DNA study.
Michel Krafft · 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- Also called
- Réunion starlingPBDB
- Sits inside
- FregilupusPBDB
- 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.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Fregilupus varius 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
1 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.
Fregilupus varius and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Fregilupus varius and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
11 taxa- Alopochen kervazoi1 site
- Ardenna pacifica1 site
- Falco duboisi1 site
- Fulica newtonii1 site
- Mascarinus mascarin1 site
- Nesoenas duboisi1 site
- Numenius phaeopus1 site
- Otus grucheti1 site
- Phaethon lepturus1 site
- Puffinus lherminieri1 site
- Threskiornis solitarius1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Fregilupus varius, 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 reference- The avifauna of Réunion Island (Mascarene Islands) at the time of the arrival of the first Europeans1
Each of the 1 occurrence 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 content1
Picture of Fregilupus varius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Michel Krafft
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Fregilupus varius 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 itFregilupus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Boddaert 1783)