Leptoptilos robustus

Leptoptilos robustus is an extinct species of large-bodied stork belonging to the genus Leptoptilos that lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia during the Late Pleistocene. It stood at about 180 cm tall and weighed up to an estimated 16 kg (35 lb). Due to its large size, L. robustus likely occupied a terrestrial predatory or scavenging niche, likely heavily relying on the dwarfed elephant relative Stegodon florensis for a large part of its diet, and probably competing with Homo floresiensis, Komodo dragons and Trigonoceps vultures for food resources. The majority of the discoveries are concentrated in Liang Bua cave located slightly north of Ruteng in the East Nusa Tenggara province.

Leptoptilos robustus

Meijer et al. (2022) · CC BY 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
Sits inside
LeptoptilosPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Leptoptilos
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Leptoptilos
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Leptoptilos

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 5 of 5 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 5 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

5 occurrences of Leptoptilos robustus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

5 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.

Leptoptilos robustus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Leptoptilos robustus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

4 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Leptoptilos robustus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

Each of the 5 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Leptoptilos robustus

Credit
Meijer et al. (2022)
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Leptoptilos robustus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itLeptoptilos through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Meijer and Awe Due 2010