Fringillidae

The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches generally have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usually resident and do not migrate. They have a worldwide native distribution except for Australia and the polar regions. The family Fringillidae contains more than two hundred species divided into fifty genera. It includes the canaries, siskins, redpolls, serins, grosbeaks and euphonias, as well as the morphologically divergent Hawaiian honeycreepers.

Fringillidae

Francis C. Franklin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
finchPBDB
Sits inside
PasseriformesPBDB
Diet
granivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 4.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 134 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 134 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 134 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 98 of 134 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences10–9.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.4–8.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.6–7.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.8–7.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.1–6.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.3–5.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.7–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–1.6 Mya — about 5 occurrences1.6–785 ka Mya — about 10 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 115 occurrences4.7 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

134 occurrences of Fringillidae 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

134 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.

Fringillidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Fringillidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,226 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 76 sites for Fringillidae, 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

44 references

Each of the 134 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. 32 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 Fringillidae

Credit
Francis C. Franklin
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
bcbirds
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itPasseriformes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vigors 1825