Aphelocoma californica

The California scrub jay is a species of scrub jay native to western North America. It ranges from southern British Columbia throughout California and western Nevada near Reno to west of the Sierra Nevada. The California scrub jay was once lumped with Woodhouse's scrub jay and collectively called the western scrub jay. IUCN and the Handbook of the Birds of the World maintain this lumped taxon. The group was also lumped with the island scrub jay and the Florida scrub jay; the taxon was then called simply scrub jay. The California scrub jay is nonmigratory and can be found in urban areas, where it can become tame and will come to bird feeders. While many refer to scrub jays as "blue jays", the blue jay is a different species of bird entirely.

Aphelocoma californica

Becky Matsubara from El Sobrante, California · CC BY 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
Also called
California scrub-jayPBDB
Sits inside
AphelocomaPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Corvidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Corvidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Corvidae

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 5 of 5 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 5 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

5 occurrences of Aphelocoma californica 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

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.

Aphelocoma californica and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aphelocoma californica and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

192 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Aphelocoma californica, 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

3 references

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 content3

Picture of Aphelocoma californica

Credit
Becky Matsubara from El Sobrante, California
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Aphelocoma californica · MLZ:Bird:MLZ:Bird:56723

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
MooreLab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itAphelocoma through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Vigors 1839)