Andrewsornis

Andrewsornis is an extinct genus of giant flightless predatory birds of the family Phorusrhacidae or "terror birds" that lived in Oligocene Argentina. Fossils have been found in the Sarmiento Formation, and possibly the Agua de la Piedra Formation.

Andrewsornis

Amphicoelias · CC0 · 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
PhorusrhacidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Phorusrhacidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Phorusrhacidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Phorusrhacidae

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 29 Mya and 21 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 2 of 3 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesMiocene29–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29.5 Mya20.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Andrewsornis on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

3 occurrences

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

2 formations

Sarmiento — 46.68°S, 68.35°WSarmiento — 45.23°S, 67.49°WAgua de la Piedra — 36.55°S, 69.70°W

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The named rock units Andrewsornis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Andrewsornis and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Andrewsornis and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

108 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Andrewsornis, 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

Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Andrewsornis

Credit
Amphicoelias
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Andrewsornis 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

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 itPhorusrhacidae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Patterson 1941