Teratornis merriami

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- Merriam's teratornPBDB
- Sits inside
- TeratornisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.
15 occurrences of Teratornis merriami on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
15 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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 Teratornis merriami has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Teratornis merriami and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Teratornis merriami and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
517 taxa- Antigone canadensis8 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos8 sites
- Ardea herodias8 sites
- Bubo virginianus8 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis8 sites
- Ciconia maltha8 sites
- Fulica americana8 sites
- Gymnogyps californianus8 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps8 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos7 sites
- Branta canadensis7 sites
- Buteo7 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus7 sites
- Accipiter cooperii6 sites
- Buteo swainsoni6 sites
- Callipepla californica6 sites
- Caracara cheriway6 sites
- Cathartes aura6 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos6 sites
- Corvus corax6 sites
- Falco columbarius6 sites
- Falco mexicanus6 sites
- Falco sparverius6 sites
- Neogyps errans6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Teratornis merriami, 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
12 references- A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California3
- The avifauna of the Pleistocene in Florida2
- An early Irvingtonian avifauna from Leisey Shell Pit, Florida1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- The late Pleistocene avifauna of Crystal Ball Cave, Utah1
- Additions to the late Pleistocene avifauna of Bradenton, Manatee County, Florida1
- The fossil avifauna of Itchtucknee River, Florida1
- Fossil arthropods of California 8. A case of Pleistocene myiasis from the La Brea pits1
- The fossil Birds of California1
- The avifauna associated with human remains at Rancho la Brea, California1
- The Finding of Pleistocene Material in an Asphalt Pit at Carpinteria, California1
- Teratornis, a new avian genus from Rancho La Brea1
Each of the 15 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 Teratornis merriami
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTeratornis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller 1909