Cardinalis cardinalis
The northern cardinal, also commonly known as the common cardinal, red cardinal, or simply cardinal, is a bird in the genus Cardinalis. It can be found in southeastern Canada, through the eastern United States from Maine to Minnesota to Texas, New Mexico, southern Arizona, southern California and south through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. It is also an introduced species in a few locations such as Bermuda and all major islands of Hawaii since its introduction in 1929. Its habitat includes woodlands, gardens, shrublands, and wetlands. It is the state bird of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Rhododendrites · 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
- northern cardinalPBDB
- Sits inside
- CardinalisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Length
- 8.5 inchWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
7 occurrences of Cardinalis cardinalis 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
7 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Cardinalis cardinalis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cardinalis cardinalis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
323 taxa- Dasypus bellus6 sites
- Equus6 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus6 sites
- Accipiter cooperii5 sites
- Blarina carolinensis5 sites
- Corvus ossifragus5 sites
- Cryptotis parva5 sites
- Geomys pinetis5 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala5 sites
- Megascops asio5 sites
- Peromyscus polionotus5 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps5 sites
- Scalopus aquaticus5 sites
- Zenaida macroura5 sites
- Buteo4 sites
- Colaptes auratus4 sites
- Colinus virginianus4 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius4 sites
- Gallinago gallinago4 sites
- Palaeolama mirifica4 sites
- Paramylodon harlani4 sites
- Tyto alba4 sites
- Aix sponsa3 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Cardinalis cardinalis, 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- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula4
- A Pleistocene avifauna from Haile, Florida1
- The Pleistocene avifauna of Arredondo, Florida1
- A Pleistocene avifauna from Rock Spring, Florida1
Each of the 7 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 Cardinalis cardinalis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rhododendrites
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cardinalis cardinalis 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 itCardinalis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)