Megapodius freycinet
The dusky megapode, also known as dusky scrubfowl or common megapode, is a medium-sized, approximately 41 cm long, blackish bird with a short pointed crest, bare red facial skin, dark legs, brown irises, and a dark brown and yellow bill. The male and female are similar. This terrestrial species lives in forests and swamps, including mangroves, of the Maluku and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia. Like other megapodes, it lays its eggs in a mound made from earth mixed with leaves, sand, gravel, and sticks, which can be as large as 11 m (36 ft) in diameter and stand nearly 5 m (16 ft) tall.
James Eaton · CC0 · 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
- dusky scrubfowlPBDB
- Sits inside
- MegapodiusPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Galliformes
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Galliformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Megapodius freycinet 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
3 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Megapodius freycinet and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Megapodius freycinet and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
22 taxa- Gallus gallus3 sites
- Porphyrio porphyrio3 sites
- Anous stolidus2 sites
- Phaethon lepturus2 sites
- Pseudobulweria rostrata2 sites
- Sterninae2 sites
- Sula leucogaster2 sites
- Sula sula2 sites
- Anous minutus1 site
- Ducula pacifica1 site
- Fregata ariel1 site
- Fregata minor1 site
- Galliformes1 site
- Gallirallus philippensis1 site
- Numenius tahitiensis1 site
- Onychoprion fuscatus1 site
- Papasula abbotti abbotti1 site
- Phaethon rubricauda1 site
- Pluvialis dominica1 site
- Procellariidae1 site
- Pterodroma1 site
- Tringa incana1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Megapodius freycinet, 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
1 referenceEach of the 3 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 Megapodius freycinet
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- James Eaton
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itMegapodius through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gaimard 1823