Nycticorax nycticorax

The black-crowned night heron or black-capped night heron, commonly shortened to just night heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. In Australasia it is replaced by the closely related Nankeen night heron, with which it has hybridised in the area of contact.

Nycticorax nycticorax

ramidos · 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
Also called
black-crowned night heronPBDB
Sits inside
NycticoraxPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae
Mass
682 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.

Pleistocene — about 9 of 10 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 10 occurrences807 ka–764 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences764 ka–722 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences722 ka–679 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences679 ka–637 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 ka–595 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences595 ka–552 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences552 ka–510 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510 ka–467 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences467 ka–425 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425 ka–382 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences382 ka–340 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340 ka–297 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences297 ka–255 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences255 ka–212 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212 ka–170 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences127 ka–85 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences85 ka–42 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences42 ka–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka1.27 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Nycticorax nycticorax 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

10 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.

Nycticorax nycticorax and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Nycticorax nycticorax and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

348 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Nycticorax nycticorax, 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

10 references

Each of the 10 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 content3

Picture of Nycticorax nycticorax

Credit
ramidos
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Nycticorax nycticorax · BRUCE:2025.12.273:BRUCE2025_12_273

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itNycticorax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)