Turnix varius
The painted buttonquail is a species of buttonquail, the family Turnicidae, which resemble, but are unrelated to, the quails of Phasianidae. This species is resident in Australia where numbers are believed to be in decline. A subspecies, the Abrolhos painted buttonquail, is endemic to the Houtman Abrolhos islands.

JJ Harrison · CC BY-SA 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
- painted buttonquailPBDB
- Sits inside
- TurnixPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 109 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Turnix varius 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene80%
- Holocene20%
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.
Turnix varius and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Turnix varius and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
168 taxa- Coturnix4 sites
- Bettongia penicillata3 sites
- Corvus3 sites
- Gallirallus philippensis3 sites
- Isoodon obesulus3 sites
- Perameles bougainville3 sites
- Potorous platyops3 sites
- Tiliqua3 sites
- Tribonyx mortierii3 sites
- Varanus3 sites
- Antechinus flavipes2 sites
- Aves2 sites
- Bettongia2 sites
- Bettongia lesueur2 sites
- Cercartetus nanus2 sites
- Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae2 sites
- Cinclosoma punctatum2 sites
- Coturnix pectoralis2 sites
- Dasyurus maculatus2 sites
- Dasyurus viverrinus2 sites
- Dromaius novaehollandiae2 sites
- Egernia2 sites
- Gallinago hardwickii2 sites
- Grallina cyanoleuca2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Turnix varius, 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- Pleistocene avian fossils from Pyramids Cave (M-89), eastern Victoria, Australia1
- Fossil avian assemblage of Pitfall Origin from Holocene sediments in Amphitheatre Cave (G-2), South-western Victoria, Australia1
- The upper fossil fauna of the Henschke fossil cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- Late Pleistocene Faunal Remains from Seton Rock Shelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia1
- Small fossil vertebrates from Victoria Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia. III. Birds (Aves)1
Each of the 5 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 Turnix varius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 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
- Turnix varius · nhmuk:zoo:S/1952.2.142
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 itTurnix through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lathum 1802)