Ninox novaeseelandiae

The morepork, also known by its Māori name ruru, is a small brown owl found in New Zealand, the Australian islands of Norfolk Island, and formerly on Lord Howe Island. Its names are onomatopoeic, owing to the species’ distinctive calls. Three subspecies of the morepork are recognised, one of which is extinct and another that exists only as a hybrid population.

Ninox novaeseelandiae

JJ Harrison · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
southern boobookPBDB
Sits inside
NinoxPBDB
Diet
carnivore, insectivorePBDB, for Strigidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Strigidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Strigiformes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Strigidae

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 1 of 12 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 11 of 12 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

12 occurrences of Ninox novaeseelandiae 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

12 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.

Ninox novaeseelandiae and its relatives

Holocene

Where Ninox novaeseelandiae and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

196 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Ninox novaeseelandiae, 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

6 references

Each of the 12 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 content1

Picture of Ninox novaeseelandiae

Credit
JJ Harrison
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ninox novaeseelandiae 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 itNinox through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1788)