Presbyornithidae

Presbyornithidae is an extinct group of birds found in North America, South America, East Asia, Australia and possibly North Africa. They had evolved by the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous and became extinct during the Aquitanian age of the Early Miocene. The family contains the oldest known neognath, Teviornis from the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia.

Presbyornithidae

Smokeybjb · 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
Sits inside
AnseriformesPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Anseriformes
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Anseriformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

Time the record covers

At least 44 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 27.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 15.98 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 5 of 28 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 5 of 28 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 15 of 28 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 28 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 28 occurrencesMiocene85–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–78 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences78–76 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences76–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences62–59 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences59–57 Mya — about 3 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 3 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 3 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–43 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 1 occurrence38–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence29–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–24 Mya — about 1 occurrence24–22 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.2 Mya27.3 Mya85 Mya15 Mya

28 occurrences of Presbyornithidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

28 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.

Found in

19 formations

Naran Bulak — 44.62°N, 106.18°ENaran Bulak — 43.47°N, 100.38°ELance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WSarmiento — 45.40°S, 67.72°WBridger — 41.20°N, 110.50°WElmore — 50.80°N, 1.20°WColton — 39.35°N, 111.57°WWasatch — 42.07°N, 109.10°WNemegt — 43.57°N, 100.48°EAquia — 38.45°N, 77.25°WAdaev — 44.11°N, 52.81°EGreen River — 40.53°N, 109.09°WWipajiri — 27.75°S, 140.73°EEtadunna — 28.76°S, 138.40°ENamba — 31.17°S, 140.23°EMargaret — 78.67°N, 81.90°WDjadokhta — 42.08°N, 102.17°EHeadon Beds — 50.72°N, 1.59°WBullion Creek — 47.03°N, 103.65°WLa Meseta — 64.24°S, 56.65°W

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The named rock units Presbyornithidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Presbyornithidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Presbyornithidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

474 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Presbyornithidae, 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

22 references

Each of the 28 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. 10 further references are not listed. 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 Presbyornithidae

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

No 3D scan of Presbyornithidae 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 itAnseriformes through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Wetmore 1926)