Tadorna tadorna
The common shelduck is a waterfowl species of the shelduck genus Tadorna. It is widespread and common in the Palearctic, in Europe and northwest Africa mainly breeding on temperate coasts, saline pools and estuaries, and in Asia on inland salt lakes; increasingly it is also using open freshwater habitats inland. Wintering is in temperate to subtropical regions.

Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE · CC BY-SA 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
- Common shelduckPBDB
- Sits inside
- TadornaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Anseriformes
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anseriformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 78 gWikidata
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 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
11 occurrences of Tadorna tadorna 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
11 occurrences- Pleistocene91%
- Holocene9%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Tadorna tadorna has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tadorna tadorna and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tadorna tadorna and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
179 taxa- Anura4 sites
- Turdus pilaris3 sites
- Alle alle2 sites
- Anas crecca2 sites
- Anatidae2 sites
- Bubo bubo2 sites
- Corvus corone2 sites
- Coturnix coturnix2 sites
- Falco tinnunculus2 sites
- Haliaeetus albicilla2 sites
- Melanitta nigra2 sites
- Pica pica2 sites
- Rana temporaria2 sites
- Somateria2 sites
- Turdus2 sites
- Ursus arctos2 sites
- Accipiter nisus1 site
- Aenocyon dirus1 site
- Alauda arvensis1 site
- Alaudidae1 site
- Alectoris rufa1 site
- Alytes obstetricans1 site
- Anas1 site
- Anas platyrhynchos1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Tadorna tadorna, 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
6 references- Humans and marine resource interaction reappraised: Archaeofauna remains during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in Cantabrian Spain6
- A new Middle Pleistocene bird assemblage from Cava di Breccia di Casal Selce (Ponte Galeria, Rome, Italy)1
- Pleistocene birds of Gruta da Furninha (Peniche-Portugal): a paleontological and paleoenvironmental aproach1
- The mid-Irvingtonian Fairmead Landfill fossil site, Madera County Paleontology Collection, and Fossil Discovery Center of Madera County, California1
- Pleistocene and prehistoric birds of south-west Britain1
- The Pleistocene birds of south-eastern England1
Each of the 11 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 Tadorna tadorna
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- darwinmuseum.ru
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itTadorna through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)