Tringa semipalmata
The willet is a large shorebird in the family Scolopacidae. It is a relatively large and robust sandpiper and is the largest of the species called "shanks" in the genus Tringa. Its closest relative is the lesser yellowlegs, a much smaller bird with a very different appearance apart from the fine, clear, and dense pattern of the neck, which both species show in breeding plumage. It breeds in North America and the West Indies and winters in southern North America, Central America, the West Indies and South America.

Original photo by Mdf . Cropping and brightness adjustment by Pharaoh Hound at en.wikipedia · CC BY 2.5 · 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
- willetPBDB
- Sits inside
- TringaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 301.4 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 2 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
20 occurrences of Tringa semipalmata 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
20 occurrences- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene50%
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 Tringa semipalmata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tringa semipalmata and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tringa semipalmata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
552 taxa- Tyto alba12 sites
- Corvus corax11 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos10 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus10 sites
- Anas9 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos9 sites
- Larus9 sites
- Limosa fedoa9 sites
- Numenius americanus9 sites
- Phalacrocorax auritus9 sites
- Anatinae8 sites
- Anserinae8 sites
- Antigone canadensis8 sites
- Branta canadensis8 sites
- Buteo8 sites
- Gavia stellata8 sites
- Melanitta8 sites
- Phalacrocorax8 sites
- Pluvialis squatarola8 sites
- Uria8 sites
- Aechmophorus7 sites
- Aythya7 sites
- Bucephala albeola7 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Tringa semipalmata, 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- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna8
- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island2
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits1
- Late Pleistocene birds from Kingston Saltpeter Cave, southern Appalachian Mountains, Georgia1
- Prehistoric exploitation of birds on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from northwestern Alabama1
- The non-passerine Pleistocene avifauna of the Talara Tar Seeps, northwestern Peru1
- The late Pleistocene avifauna of La Carolina, southwestern Ecuador1
- Pleistocene vertebrates of the Los Angeles basin and vicinity:(exclusive of Rancho La Brea)1
- Notes on fossil and subfossil birds1
- The avifauna associated with human remains at Rancho la Brea, California1
- Bird remains from the West Indies1
Each of the 20 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 Tringa semipalmata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Original photo by Mdf . Cropping and brightness adjustment by Pharaoh Hound at en.wikipedia
- Licence
- CC BY 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tringa semipalmata 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Willet”
- 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 itTringa through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1789)