Aythya collaris
The ring-necked duck is a diving duck from North America commonly found in freshwater ponds and lakes. The scientific name is derived from Greek aithuia, an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors including Hesychius and Aristotle, and Latin collaris, "of the neck" from collum, "neck".

Polinova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- ring-necked duckPBDB
- Sits inside
- AythyaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Anatinae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Anatinae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Anatinae
- Mass
- 744 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 1.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.
18 occurrences of Aythya collaris 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
18 occurrences- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene91%
- Holocene6%
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
6 formations
- Okeechobee Formation2
- Fort Thompson Formation1
- Bermont Formation1
- Tamiami Formation1
- Wicomico Formation1
- Becerra Formation1
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The named rock units Aythya collaris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Aythya collaris and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Aythya collaris and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
677 taxa- Podilymbus podiceps14 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo10 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus10 sites
- Anas acuta9 sites
- Spatula discors9 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos8 sites
- Branta canadensis8 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius8 sites
- Equus8 sites
- Spatula clypeata8 sites
- Anas crecca7 sites
- Dasypus bellus7 sites
- Fulica americana7 sites
- Rallus limicola7 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus6 sites
- Aix sponsa6 sites
- Ciconia maltha6 sites
- Colaptes auratus6 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos6 sites
- Didelphis virginiana6 sites
- Falco sparverius6 sites
- Geomys pinetis6 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala6 sites
- Mareca americana6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Aythya collaris, 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
16 references- A middle Pleistocene bird community from Saint Lucie County, Florida2
- The Pleistocene avifauna of Arredondo, Florida2
- A late Pleistocene Bird community at the northern edge of the tropics in Sonora, Mexico1
- Late Pleistocene birds from Kingston Saltpeter Cave, southern Appalachian Mountains, Georgia1
- Middle Pleistocene (early Rancholabrean) vertebrates and associated marine and non-marine invertebrates from Oldsmar, Pinnellas County, Florida1
- An early Irvingtonian avifauna from Leisey Shell Pit, Florida1
- Two new late Blancan avifaunas from Florida and the extinction of wetland birds in the Plio-Pleistocene1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from northwestern Alabama1
- A new species of teal from the Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) of Wyoming1
- Avian fossils from three Pleistocene sites in central Mexico1
- A Pleistocene avifauna from Haile, Florida1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
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. 4 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 Aythya collaris
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Polinova
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Aythya collaris 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 itAythya through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Donovan 1809)