Burhinus
Burhinus is a genus of birds in the family Burhinidae. This family also contains the genera Esacus and Hesperoburhinus. The genus name Burhinus comes from the Greek bous, ox, and rhis, nose.

Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa · 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
- thick-kneePBDB
- Sits inside
- BurhinidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
Time the record covers
At least 16 million years on record.
The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.5 Mya to 0 Mya.
12 occurrences of Burhinus 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- Miocene8%
- Pleistocene64%
- Holocene27%
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
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The named rock units Burhinus 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.
Burhinus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Burhinus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
479 taxa- Athene cunicularia7 sites
- Tyto alba6 sites
- Falco sparverius5 sites
- Anas bahamensis3 sites
- Charadrius vociferus3 sites
- Columbidae3 sites
- Coragyps atratus3 sites
- Corvus nasicus3 sites
- Corvus palmarum3 sites
- Dendrocygna autumnalis3 sites
- Falco peregrinus3 sites
- Gallinago3 sites
- Geotrygon chrysia3 sites
- Geranoaetus melanoleucus3 sites
- Melanerpes superciliaris3 sites
- Mimus gundlachii3 sites
- Patagioenas leucocephala3 sites
- Patagioenas squamosa3 sites
- Phalaropus lobatus3 sites
- Phalaropus tricolor3 sites
- Porzana carolina3 sites
- Psittacus leucocephalus3 sites
- Saurothera merlini3 sites
- Tringa flavipes3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Burhinus, 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
11 references- Fossil and subfossil birds from the Bahamas2
- Animal remains from 17th century Carnide, Lisbon, Portugal.1
- The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba1
- The diversity and biogeography of late Pleistocene birds from the lowland Neotropics1
- Late Prehistoric Lucayan occupation and subsistence on Middle Caicos Island, northern West Indies1
- Seasonal exploitation of seabirds by Late Holocene coastal foragers: Analysis of modern and archaeological data from Western Cape, South Africa1
- A new thick-knee, Burhinus, from the Miocene of Nebraska, with comments on the habitat requirements of the Burhinidae (Aves: Charadriiformes)1
- The non-passerine Pleistocene avifauna of the Talara Tar Seeps, northwestern Peru1
- The late Pleistocene avifauna of La Carolina, southwestern Ecuador1
- Quaternary avian remains from Dark Canyon Cave, New Mexico1
- Pleistocene birds from New Providence Island, Bahamas1
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 content2
Picture of Burhinus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Burhinus”
- 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 itBurhinidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Illiger 1811