Chlidonias
The name marsh tern refers to terns of the genus Chlidonias, which typically breed in freshwater marshes, rather than coastal locations.

By J. G. Keulemans, in W.L. Buller's A History of the Birds of New Zealand . 2nd edition. Published 1888. · Public Domain · 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
- LaridaePBDB
- 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 most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Chlidonias on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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- Pleistocene43%
- Holocene57%
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.
Chlidonias and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Chlidonias and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
309 taxa- Anas chlorotis3 sites
- Canis lupus3 sites
- Cyanoramphus3 sites
- Eudyptes pachyrhynchus3 sites
- Macronectes3 sites
- Nestor meridionalis3 sites
- Ninox novaeseelandiae3 sites
- Tadorna variegata3 sites
- Turnagra capensis3 sites
- Alectoris graeca2 sites
- Anarhynchus frontalis2 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos2 sites
- Anas superciliosa2 sites
- Anthus novaeseelandiae2 sites
- Apteryx australis2 sites
- Ardenna grisea2 sites
- Athene noctua2 sites
- Aythya novaeseelandiae2 sites
- Biziura delautouri2 sites
- Bos primigenius2 sites
- Callaeas cinereus2 sites
- Capreolus capreolus2 sites
- Charadrius obscurus2 sites
- Circus approximans2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Chlidonias, 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- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand2
- The bird assemblage from the Middle Palaeolithic level I of Arbreda Cave: A taphonomic story1
- Records of a White-eyed Gull Ichthyaetus leucophthalmus, and a Black Tern Chlidonias niger from the Karwar coast, Karnataka, India1
- New Neanderthal remains from Mani peninsula, Southern Greece: The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic cave site1
- Fossils indicate Pelecanoides georgicus had large colonies at Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand1
- A review of the Pleistocene birds of Fossil Lake, Oregon1
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 content2
Picture of Chlidonias
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- By J. G. Keulemans, in W.L. Buller's A History of the Birds of New Zealand . 2nd edition. Published 1888.
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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, “Marsh tern”
- 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 itLaridae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1822