Catharus
The genus Catharus is an evolutionary clade of forest-dwelling passerine birds in the family Turdidae (thrushes), commonly known as nightingale-thrushes. The extant species are widely distributed across the Americas and are descended from a common ancestor that lived 4–6 million years ago. Most of the species are shy of humans, seldom leaving the cover of dense forest vegetation, where their activities are hidden from view. Thus, many fundamental aspects of their biology and life histories are poorly known.

Michael Woodruff · CC BY-SA 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- Sits inside
- TurdidaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, frugivorePBDB, for Turdidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Turdidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Turdidae
Time the record covers
At least 81 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
11 occurrences of Catharus 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
11 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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.
Catharus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Catharus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
471 taxa- Turdus migratorius5 sites
- Bufo4 sites
- Chondestes grammacus4 sites
- Colaptes auratus4 sites
- Eremophila alpestris4 sites
- Falco sparverius4 sites
- Junco hyemalis4 sites
- Passerculus sandwichensis4 sites
- Rana4 sites
- Salpinctes obsoletus4 sites
- Zenaida macroura4 sites
- Zonotrichia leucophrys4 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus3 sites
- Anas crecca3 sites
- Asio flammeus3 sites
- Athene cunicularia3 sites
- Aves3 sites
- Cerorhinca monocerata3 sites
- Haemorhous mexicanus3 sites
- Icterus bullockii3 sites
- Lanius ludovicianus3 sites
- Larus heermanni3 sites
- Larus occidentalis3 sites
- Melospiza melodia3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Catharus, 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
6 references- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits6
- The Pleistocene Avifauna of Clark Quarry, Glynn County, Georgia1
- Tovar et al., 20071
- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula1
- The Late Wisconsinan vertebrate fauna from Deadman Cave, southern Arizona1
- The Clark's Cave bone deposit and the Late Pleistocene paleoecology of the central Appalachian Mountains of Virginia1
Each of the 11 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 Catharus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Michael Woodruff
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 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, “Catharus”
- 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 itTurdidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1850