Lanius
Lanius, the typical shrikes, are a genus of passerine birds in the shrike family Laniidae. The majority of the family's species are placed in this genus. The genus name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits. The common English name "shrike" is from Old English scríc, "shriek", referring to the shrill call.

Charles J. Sharp · 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
- shrikePBDB
- Sits inside
- LaniidaePBDB
- 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 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.
17 occurrences of Lanius 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
17 occurrences- Pleistocene71%
- Holocene29%
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.
Lanius and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lanius and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
542 taxa- Corvus corax7 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis6 sites
- Falco sparverius6 sites
- Sturnella neglecta6 sites
- Tyto alba6 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos5 sites
- Athene cunicularia5 sites
- Charadrius vociferus5 sites
- Eremophila alpestris5 sites
- Oreoscoptes montanus5 sites
- Pyrrhocorax graculus5 sites
- Turdus5 sites
- Turdus migratorius5 sites
- Zenaida macroura5 sites
- Asio flammeus4 sites
- Aves4 sites
- Branta canadensis4 sites
- Buteo lagopus4 sites
- Coccothraustes coccothraustes4 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius4 sites
- Emberiza4 sites
- Erithacus rubecula4 sites
- Falco columbarius4 sites
- Larus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Lanius, 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
12 references- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits3
- Holocene vertebrate assemblages provide the first evidence for the presence of the barn owl (Tytonidae, Tyto alba) on Socotra Island (Yemen)2
- Upper Pleistocene and Holocene fossil avifauna from Moleta cave (Mallorca, Balearic Islands)2
- Biostratigraphy of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Corsica and the role of man in the Holocene faunal turnover2
- Avian remains from new Upper Pleistocene and Holocene sites in the Spanish Pyrenees1
- Late Quaternary terrestrial vertebrates from Palawan Islad, Philippines1
- The Middle Pleistocene avifauna of Spinagallo Cave (Sicily, Italy): preliminary report1
- The late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) avifauna of Little Box Elder Cave, Wyoming1
- Remarks on the Middle and Lower Pleistocene vertebrate fauna in the Petralona Cave1
- A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California1
- The Pleistocene avifauna of Arredondo, Florida1
- The fossil Birds of California1
Each of the 17 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. 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 Lanius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Lanius collaris · l-jz:JZ:93
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Lanius”
- 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 itLaniidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758