Ixobrychus dubius

The black-backed bittern, also known as the black-backed least bittern or Australian little bittern, is a little-known species of heron in the family Ardeidae found in Australia and vagrant to southern New Guinea. Formerly lumped with the little bittern, it is one of the smallest herons in the world. This species was formerly placed in the genus Ixobrychus.

Ixobrychus dubius

JJ Harrison · 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
Australian little bitternPBDB
Sits inside
IxobrychusPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae

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.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceHolocene — about 1 of 1 occurrence17 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence512 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Ixobrychus dubius on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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

1 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.

Ixobrychus dubius and its relatives

Holocene

Where Ixobrychus dubius and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Ixobrychus dubius, 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

1 reference

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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ixobrychus dubius

Credit
JJ Harrison
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ixobrychus dubius 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 itIxobrychus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthews 1912