Natunaornis gigoura

The Viti Levu giant pigeon or Fiji giant ground pigeon is an extinct flightless pigeon of Viti Levu, the largest island in Fiji. It was only slightly smaller than the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire and is the first giant flightless pigeon to be discovered on a Pacific island.

Natunaornis gigoura

Apokryltaros · 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
Viti Levu giant pigeonPBDB
Sits inside
NatunaornisPBDB
Diet
frugivore, granivorePBDB, for Columbidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Columbidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Columbidae

Time the record covers

At most 129 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 2 of 4 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 2 of 4 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

4 occurrences of Natunaornis gigoura 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

4 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.

Natunaornis gigoura and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Natunaornis gigoura and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

11 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Natunaornis gigoura, 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 reference

Each of the 4 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 Natunaornis gigoura

Credit
Apokryltaros
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Natunaornis gigoura was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itNatunaornis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Worthy 2001