Aplonis opaca
The Micronesian starling is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in Micronesia, from the Northern Mariana Islands to Palau and all the way into eastern Micronesia. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest. It is the only native frugivore existing on Guam.
Peter · 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- Also called
- Micronesian starlingPBDB
- Sits inside
- AplonisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
18 occurrences of Aplonis opaca 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
18 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Aplonis opaca and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Aplonis opaca and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
71 taxa- Alopecoenas xanthonurus15 sites
- Pteropus12 sites
- Ptilinopus roseicapilla11 sites
- Squamata11 sites
- Emballonura semicaudata10 sites
- Porzana10 sites
- Aerodramus vanikorensis9 sites
- Megapodius laperouse8 sites
- Passeriformes8 sites
- Amaurornis cinerea7 sites
- Gallirallus7 sites
- Gygis alba candida7 sites
- Myzomela rubratra7 sites
- Rallidae7 sites
- Zosterops conspicillatus7 sites
- Anous ceruleus6 sites
- Anous stolidus6 sites
- Gekkonidae6 sites
- Rattus exulans6 sites
- Homo sapiens5 sites
- Phaethon lepturus5 sites
- Puffinus lherminieri5 sites
- Varanus5 sites
- Erythrura4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Aplonis opaca, 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
4 references- The prehistory of vertebrates, especially birds, on Tinian, Aguiguan, and Rota, Northern Mariana Islands11
- The prehistory and biogeography of terrestrial vertebrates on Guam, Mariana Islands3
- Extinct and extirpated birds from Rota, Mariana Islands3
- Biogeography and prehistoric exploitation of birds from Fais Island, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia1
Each of the 18 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 Aplonis opaca
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Peter
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Aplonis opaca 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 itAplonis through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Kittlitz 1833)