Tadorna tadornoides
The Australian shelduck, also known as the chestnut-breasted shelduck or mountain duck, is a shelduck, a group of large goose-like ducks part of the bird family Anatidae. The genus name Tadorna comes from Celtic roots and means "pied waterfowl". They have a striking chestnut-coloured breast and black body. They are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · 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
- Australian shelduckPBDB
- Sits inside
- TadornaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Anseriformes
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anseriformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 1.29 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 2.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka.
3 occurrences of Tadorna tadornoides 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
3 occurrences- Pliocene33%
- Pleistocene67%
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 Tadorna tadornoides has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tadorna tadornoides and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tadorna tadornoides and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
66 taxa- Amphibolurus1 site
- Anas castanea1 site
- Anas superciliosa1 site
- Anseranas semipalmata1 site
- Antechinus flavipes1 site
- Bettongia lesueur1 site
- Bettongia penicillata1 site
- Branta ruficollis1 site
- Cercartetus lepidus1 site
- Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae1 site
- Corvus1 site
- Coturnix pectoralis1 site
- Dasyurus geoffroii1 site
- Dasyurus maculatus1 site
- Egernia1 site
- Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus1 site
- Esacus magnirostris1 site
- Falco berigora1 site
- Gallinago hardwickii1 site
- Gallirallus philippensis1 site
- Grallina cyanoleuca1 site
- Gymnorhina tibicen1 site
- Hieraaetus morphnoides1 site
- Hirundo tahitica1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Tadorna tadornoides, 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
3 references- A shelduck (Anatidae: Tadorna) from the Pliocene of South Australia1
- The fossil bird remains in the Dubois collection.1
- Late Pleistocene Faunal Remains from Seton Rock Shelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia1
Each of the 3 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 Tadorna tadornoides
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tadorna tadornoides 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 itTadorna through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Jardine and Selby 1828)