Perisoreus canadensis

The Canada jay, also known as the grey jay, gray jay, camp robber, moose bird, gorby, or whisky jack, is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae. It is found in boreal forests of North America, north to the tree line, and in the Rocky Mountains subalpine zone south to New Mexico and Arizona. A fairly large songbird, the Canada jay has pale grey underparts, darker grey upperparts, and a grey-white head with a darker grey nape. It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, a genus more closely related to the magpie genus Cyanopica than to other birds known as jays. The Canada jay itself has nine recognized subspecies.

Perisoreus canadensis

Cephas · 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
Canada jayPBDB
Sits inside
PerisoreusPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Corvidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Corvidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Corvidae

Time the record covers

At least 198 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 5 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 5 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–950 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences950 ka–887 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences887 ka–823 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences823 ka–760 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences760 ka–697 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences697 ka–633 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences633 ka–570 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences570 ka–507 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences507 ka–443 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences443 ka–380 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences380 ka–317 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences317 ka–253 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences253 ka–190 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences190 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127 ka–63 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences63 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences210 ka – 11.7 ka1.9 Mya0 Mya

5 occurrences of Perisoreus canadensis 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

5 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.

Perisoreus canadensis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Perisoreus canadensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

399 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Perisoreus canadensis, 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

5 references

Each of the 5 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 content2

Picture of Perisoreus canadensis

Credit
Cephas
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
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
Perisoreus canadensis · KU:KUO:66968

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 itPerisoreus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1766)