Anhinga melanogaster

The Oriental darter is a water bird of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. It has a long and slender neck with a straight, pointed bill and, like the cormorant, it hunts for fish while its body is submerged in water. It spears a fish underwater, bringing it above the surface, tossing and juggling it before swallowing the fish head first. The body remains submerged as it swims, and the slender neck alone is visible above the water, which accounts for the colloquial name of snakebird. Like the cormorants, it has wettable feathers and it is often found perched on a rock or branch with its wings held open to dry.

Anhinga melanogaster

J.M.Garg · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
oriental darterPBDB
Sits inside
AnhingaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Mass
36 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 5.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 3 of 8 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 8 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 3 of 8 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 8 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.7–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.5–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.7–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–6.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.9–6.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.5–6.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.1–5.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.6–3.2 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.2–2.8 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.8–2.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences404 ka–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences5.333 Mya129 ka12.1 Mya0 Mya

8 occurrences of Anhinga melanogaster on record. 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

8 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

Adu Asa — 10.32°N, 40.25°EWyandotte — 18.77°S, 144.85°E

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The named rock units Anhinga melanogaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

158 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Anhinga melanogaster, 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

Each of the 8 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 Anhinga melanogaster

Credit
J.M.Garg
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anhinga melanogaster was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itAnhinga through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pennant 1769