Charadrius vociferus

The killdeer is a large plover found in the Americas. Its shrill, two-syllable call is often heard, sounding like "kill deer". It was described and given its current scientific name in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. Three subspecies are described. Its upperparts are mostly brown with rufous fringes, the head has patches of white and black, and two black bands cross the breast. The belly and the rest of the breast are white. The nominate subspecies breeds from southeastern Alaska and southern Canada to Mexico. It is seen year-round in the southern half of its breeding range; the subspecies C. v. ternominatus is resident in the West Indies, and C. v. peruvianus inhabits Peru and surrounding South American countries throughout the year. North American breeders winter from their resident range south to Central America, the West Indies, and the northernmost portions of South America.

Charadrius vociferus

Charles Homler d/b/a FocusOnWildlife · 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
killdeerPBDB
Sits inside
CharadriusPBDB
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 2 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 210 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 14 of 15 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 15 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences14 ka – 11.7 ka710 ka0 Mya

15 occurrences of Charadrius vociferus 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

15 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.

Charadrius vociferus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Charadrius vociferus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

737 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Charadrius vociferus, 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

14 references

Each of the 15 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Charadrius vociferus

Credit
Charles Homler d/b/a FocusOnWildlife
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Charadrius vociferus vociferus · FMNH:Birds:390434

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 itCharadrius through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)