Synthliboramphus antiquus
The ancient murrelet is a bird in the auk family. The English term "murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Ancient murrelets are called "ancient" because they have grey on the back like a shawl, as worn by the elderly.

Eric Ellingson · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- Ancient murreletPBDB
- Sits inside
- SynthliboramphusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 206 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 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
22 occurrences of Synthliboramphus antiquus 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
22 occurrences- Pleistocene86%
- Holocene14%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Synthliboramphus antiquus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Synthliboramphus antiquus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Synthliboramphus antiquus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
324 taxa- Ptychoramphus aleuticus18 sites
- Chendytes lawi13 sites
- Uria aalge12 sites
- Fratercula dowi11 sites
- Ardenna grisea10 sites
- Branta canadensis10 sites
- Fulmarus glacialis10 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus10 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis9 sites
- Puffinus opisthomelas9 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis8 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus8 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus8 sites
- Anser caerulescens7 sites
- Ardenna tenuirostris7 sites
- Fratercula cirrhata7 sites
- Melanitta perspicillata7 sites
- Phalacrocorax pelagicus7 sites
- Tyto alba7 sites
- Hydrobates leucorhous6 sites
- Larus californicus6 sites
- Melanitta fusca6 sites
- Melospiza melodia6 sites
- Asio priscus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Synthliboramphus antiquus, 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
9 references- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island7
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California5
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits3
- A zooarchaeological study at Buldir Island, Western Aleutians, Alaska2
- Pleistocene seabirds from Shiriya, northeast Japan: systematics and oceanographic context1
- Dynamics of sea mammal and bird populations of the Bearing Sea region over the last several millennia1
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa1
- Quaternary vertebrates from Shiriya area, Shimokita Pininsula, northeastern Japan1
- Marine studies of San Pedro Bay, California1
Each of the 22 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 Synthliboramphus antiquus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Eric Ellingson
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Synthliboramphus antiquus was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource 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 itSynthliboramphus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1789)