Anserini
Anser is a waterfowl genus that includes the grey geese and the white geese. It belongs to the true goose and swan subfamily of Anserinae under the family of Anatidae. The genus has a Holarctic distribution, with at least one species breeding in any open, wet habitats in the subarctic and cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. Some also breed farther south, reaching into warm temperate regions. They mostly migrate south in winter, typically to regions in the temperate zone between the January 0 °C (32 °F) and 5 °C (41 °F) isotherms.

Uncredited · 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- Sits inside
- AnserinaePBDB
- Diet
- folivore, granivorePBDB, for Anserinae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anserinae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Anserinae
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
227 occurrences of Anserini 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
227 occurrences- Miocene3%
- Pliocene3%
- Pleistocene56%
- Holocene38%
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
17 formations
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group4
- Gabal Silsila Formation3
- Temblor Formation3
- San Pedro Formation3
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation2
- American Falls Lake Bed E Formation2
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The named rock units Anserini has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 197 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Anserini and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Anserini and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
2,190 taxa- Branta canadensis48 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos38 sites
- Larus35 sites
- Branta34 sites
- Anas31 sites
- Anser caerulescens31 sites
- Corvus corax30 sites
- Rangifer tarandus26 sites
- Anatidae25 sites
- Ovibos moschatus25 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis24 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus24 sites
- Phalacrocorax24 sites
- Phalacrocorax auritus24 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos23 sites
- Vulpes lagopus23 sites
- Ardea herodias22 sites
- Tyto alba22 sites
- Ursus maritimus22 sites
- Buteo21 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus21 sites
- Anas crecca20 sites
- Anser albifrons19 sites
- Antigone canadensis19 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 148 sites for Anserini, 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
91 references- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna21
- Polar bear fossil and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene in relation to sea ice extent and open water polynyas15
- The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe14
- The fossil Birds of California10
- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island9
- A review of the Pleistocene birds of Fossil Lake, Oregon7
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa6
- Pleistocene and prehistoric birds of south-west Britain6
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits5
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California5
- A comparison of avian assemblages from individual pits at Rancho La Brea, California5
- Fossil birds from the Equus Beds of Oregon5
Each of the 227 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. 79 further references are not listed. 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 Anserini
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Anserini 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 itAnserinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vigors 1825