Botaurus lentiginosus

The American bittern is a species of wading bird in the heron family. It has a Nearctic distribution, breeding in Canada and the northern and central parts of the United States, and wintering in the U.S. Gulf Coast states, all of Florida into the Everglades, the Caribbean islands and parts of Central America.

Botaurus lentiginosus

Walter Siegmund · CC BY 2.5 · 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
American bitternPBDB
Sits inside
BotaurusPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae
Mass
36 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 1.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 8 of 10 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 10 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–1.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences173 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences1.8 Mya11.7 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Botaurus lentiginosus 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

10 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

1 formation

Tamiami — 27.37°N, 82.45°W

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The named rock units Botaurus lentiginosus 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.

Botaurus lentiginosus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Botaurus lentiginosus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

589 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Botaurus lentiginosus, 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

10 references

Each of the 10 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 Botaurus lentiginosus

Credit
Walter Siegmund
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Botaurus lentiginosus · FMNH:Birds:106574

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
zmmu
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itBotaurus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Rackett 1813)