Aythya ferina

The common pochard, known simply as pochard in the United Kingdom, is a medium-sized diving duck in the family Anatidae. It is widespread across the Palearctic. It breeds primarily in Scandinavia and the steppe regions of Siberia, and winters farther south and west.

Aythya ferina

Alexis Lours · CC BY 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
common pochardPBDB
Sits inside
AythyaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Anatinae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Anatinae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Anatinae
Mass
66 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPleistocene — about 11 of 12 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 12 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence103 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Aythya ferina 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

12 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

3 formations

Gabal Silsila — 24.43°N, 32.95°EGebel Silsila-YCS — 24.50°N, 33.00°ECromer Forest Bed — 51.64°N, 0.80°E

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The named rock units Aythya ferina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aythya ferina and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aythya ferina and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

213 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Aythya ferina, 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

8 references

Each of the 12 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 Aythya ferina

Credit
Alexis Lours
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aythya ferina 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. (Linnaeus 1758)