Acanthisitta chloris
The rifleman is a small insectivorous passerine bird that is endemic to New Zealand. It belongs to the family Acanthisittidae, also known as the New Zealand wrens, of which it is one of only two surviving species. The rifleman resembles a wren in form, but is not related to the family of true wrens, Troglodytidae, nor the fairy-wrens of Australia.

digitaltrails · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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- Sits inside
- AcanthisittaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 1.34 gWikidata
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.
6 occurrences of Acanthisitta chloris on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene30%
- Holocene70%
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.
Acanthisitta chloris and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Acanthisitta chloris and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
68 taxa- Cyanoramphus6 sites
- Petroica australis6 sites
- Aegotheles novaezealandiae5 sites
- Coenocorypha aucklandica5 sites
- Rattus exulans5 sites
- Hoplodactylus maculatus4 sites
- Mohoua ochrocephala4 sites
- Mystacina robusta4 sites
- Rhipidura fuliginosa4 sites
- Turnagra capensis4 sites
- Xenicus4 sites
- Anthornis melanura3 sites
- Callaeas cinereus3 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae3 sites
- Pachyplichas yaldwyni3 sites
- Passer domesticus3 sites
- Petroica macrocephala3 sites
- Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae3 sites
- Aptornis defossor2 sites
- Chenonetta finschi2 sites
- Coturnix novaezelandiae2 sites
- Gallirallus australis2 sites
- Gerygone igata2 sites
- Hoplodactylus duvaucelii2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Acanthisitta chloris, 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
2 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand4
- Taphonomy of two holocene microvertebrate deposits, Takaka Hill, Nelson, New Zealand, and identification of the avian predator responsible2
Each of the 6 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Acanthisitta chloris
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- digitaltrails
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- 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
- Acanthisitta chloris · YPM:VZ:YPM ORN 125219
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 itAcanthisitta through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Sparrman 1787)