Nycticorax olsoni

The Ascension night heron is an extinct night heron species from the genus Nycticorax endemic to the South Atlantic island of Ascension. It is predominantly known from the bone fragments of six specimens found in guano deposits and caves on Ascension Island and described by Philip Ashmole, Kenneth Edwin Laurence Ryder Simmons, and William Richmond Postle Bourne in 2003.

No picture of Nycticorax olsoni was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Nycticorax olsoni, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
Ascension night heronPBDB
Sits inside
NycticoraxPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae

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.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesHolocene — about 2 of 2 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Nycticorax olsoni on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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

2 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 olsoni and its relatives

Holocene

Where Nycticorax olsoni and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

7 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Nycticorax olsoni, 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 2 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 content0

No picture of Nycticorax olsoni was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Nycticorax olsoni, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Nycticorax olsoni 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 itNycticorax through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bourne et al. 2003