Turnagra capensis
The South Island piopio also known as the New Zealand thrush, is an extinct species of passerine bird of the family Oriolidae. Milford Sound in the South Island of New Zealand is known as Piopiotahi in te reo Māori.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa · CC BY 4.0 · 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
- South Island piopioPBDB
- Sits inside
- TurnagraPBDB
- 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 most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
17 occurrences of Turnagra capensis on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
17 occurrences- Pleistocene17%
- Holocene83%
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 Turnagra capensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Turnagra capensis and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Turnagra capensis and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
172 taxa- Cyanoramphus16 sites
- Coenocorypha aucklandica12 sites
- Coturnix novaezelandiae11 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae10 sites
- Hoplodactylus maculatus10 sites
- Mohoua ochrocephala10 sites
- Mystacina robusta10 sites
- Petroica australis10 sites
- Rattus exulans10 sites
- Aegotheles novaezealandiae9 sites
- Callaeas cinereus9 sites
- Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae9 sites
- Tadorna variegata9 sites
- Sphenodon8 sites
- Xenicus8 sites
- Anas chlorotis7 sites
- Anthornis melanura7 sites
- Gallirallus australis7 sites
- Ninox novaeseelandiae7 sites
- Rhipidura fuliginosa7 sites
- Gallinula hodgenorum6 sites
- Mohoua novaeseelandiae6 sites
- Nestor meridionalis6 sites
- Philesturnus carunculatus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Turnagra capensis, 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
5 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand10
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand3
- Taphonomy of two holocene microvertebrate deposits, Takaka Hill, Nelson, New Zealand, and identification of the avian predator responsible2
- Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand1
- Fossils indicate Pelecanoides georgicus had large colonies at Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand1
Each of the 17 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 Turnagra capensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Turnagra capensis · umzc:vertebrates:480
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 itTurnagra through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Sparrman 1787)