Lagopus
Lagopus is a genus of birds in the family Phasianidae, commonly known as ptarmigan or grouse. The genus contains four living species with numerous described subspecies, all living in tundra or cold upland areas.

Roymartinlindman · 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
- ptarmiganPBDB
- Sits inside
- PhasianidaePBDB
- Diet
- granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae
Time the record covers
At least 198 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
74 occurrences of Lagopus on record. 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
74 occurrences- Pleistocene46%
- Holocene54%
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.
Found in the same rock
630 taxa- Rangifer tarandus19 sites
- Vulpes lagopus18 sites
- Ursus maritimus17 sites
- Lepus arcticus16 sites
- Ovibos moschatus16 sites
- Anatidae15 sites
- Perdix perdix13 sites
- Anas crecca12 sites
- Corvus corax12 sites
- Erignathus barbatus12 sites
- Salvelinus12 sites
- Branta11 sites
- Lyrurus tetrix11 sites
- Phoca hispida11 sites
- Larus hyperboreus10 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos9 sites
- Canis9 sites
- Corvus monedula9 sites
- Larus9 sites
- Odobenus rosmarus9 sites
- Passeriformes8 sites
- Somateria8 sites
- Tetrao urogallus8 sites
- Turdus pilaris8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 62 sites for Lagopus, 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
34 references- A catalogue of British Pleistocene birds identified by Colin JO Harrison and stored in the Natural History Museum, London, (Department of Palaeontology)10
- The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe10
- Birds in Finnish prehistory9
- Birds of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene from the Palaeolithic Djuktai cave site of Yakutia, eastern Siberia6
- Polar bear fossil and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene in relation to sea ice extent and open water polynyas3
- The birds of the late Quaternary of the Altai Mts3
- Avian fossil assemblages at the onset of the LGM in the eastern Alps: A palaecological contribution from the Rio Secco Cave (Italy)2
- Declining foraging returns from an inexhaustible resource? Abundance indices and beluga whaling in the western Canadian Arctic2
- Bird remains from Curata and Bordu Mare caves (Romania)2
- Pleistocene and prehistoric birds of south-west Britain2
- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna2
- Late Pleistocene fossil birds from Buso Doppio del Broion Cave (North-Eastern Italy): implications for palaeoecology, palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate1
Each of the 74 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. 22 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 content3
Picture of Lagopus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Roymartinlindman
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Lagopus lagopus · umzc:vertebrates:UMZC_uncatalogued_frozen18
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Lagopus”
- 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 itPhasianidae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Brisson 1760)