Larus glaucescens
The glaucous-winged gull is a large, white-headed gull. The genus name is from Latin Larus which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific glaucescens is Neo-Latin for "glaucous" from the Ancient Greek, glaukos, denoting the grey color of its wings.

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
- glaucous-winged gullPBDB
- Sits inside
- LarusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 946.1 gWikidata
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 774 ka to 0 Mya.
2 occurrences of Larus glaucescens 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
2 occurrences- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene50%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Larus glaucescens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Larus glaucescens and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Larus glaucescens and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
103 taxa- Branta canadensis2 sites
- Fulmarus glacialis2 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus2 sites
- Ptychoramphus aleuticus2 sites
- Synthliboramphus antiquus2 sites
- Actinopteri1 site
- Aechmophorus occidentalis1 site
- Aenocyon dirus1 site
- Aethia cristatella1 site
- Aethia psittacula1 site
- Aethia pusilla1 site
- Aethia pygmaea1 site
- Anas1 site
- Anas crecca carolinensis1 site
- Anas platyrhynchos1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anser albifrons1 site
- Anura1 site
- Arctocephalinae1 site
- Ardenna grisea1 site
- Bison latifrons1 site
- Branta bernicla nigricans1 site
- Bucephala albeola1 site
- Bufo1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Larus glaucescens, 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
2 references- A zooarchaeological study at Buldir Island, Western Aleutians, Alaska1
- Marine studies of San Pedro Bay, California1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Larus glaucescens
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Larus glaucescens was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource 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 itLarus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Naumann 1840)