Ciconia maltha

Ciconia maltha, also known as the asphalt stork or La Brea stork, is an extinct stork from the Late Pliocene – Late Pleistocene of United States, Cuba and Bolivia. It has been found in the La Brea Tar Pits, whence the species name maltha.

Ciconia maltha

Jonathan Chen · 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
asphalt storkPBDB
Sits inside
CiconiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

Time the record covers

At least 1.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pliocene — about 1 of 23 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 22 of 23 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 23 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.2–1.0 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.0–867 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences867 ka–693 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences693 ka–520 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence520 ka–347 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence173 ka–0 Mya — about 14 occurrences1.4 Mya129 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

23 occurrences of Ciconia maltha on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

23 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.

Found in

6 formations

Caloosahatchee — 27.00°N, 82.00°WCaloosahatchee — 27.04°N, 81.82°WOkeechobee — 27.53°N, 80.47°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WTamiami — 27.37°N, 82.45°WManix — 34.80°N, 117.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Ciconia maltha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ciconia maltha and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ciconia maltha and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

604 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Ciconia maltha, 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

17 references

Each of the 23 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. 5 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 content1

Picture of Ciconia maltha

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ciconia maltha 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 itCiconia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller 1910