Ciconiiformes

Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes. Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons and ibises, but those families have been moved to the order Pelecaniformes.

Ciconiiformes

Soloneying · 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
Sits inside
PelecanimorphaePBDB
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 125 million years on record.

The record covers at least 125.77 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 128 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 128 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 128 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 128 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 128 occurrencesMiocene — about 29 of 128 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 12 of 128 occurrencesPleistocene — about 62 of 128 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–27 Mya — about 3 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–18 Mya — about 4 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 7 occurrences14–9.0 Mya — about 5 occurrences9.0–4.5 Mya — about 16 occurrences4.5–0 Mya — about 86 occurrences125.77 Mya11.7 ka135 Mya0 Mya

128 occurrences of Ciconiiformes 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

128 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

33 formations

Jebel Qatrani — 29.45°N, 30.58°EJebel Qatrani — 29.50°N, 30.50°EVarswater — 32.98°S, 18.15°ESwartkrans — 26.02°S, 27.72°EDam — 25.98°N, 49.39°EPungo River — 35.40°N, 76.80°WTorreya — 30.30°N, 84.20°WCaloosahatchee — 27.00°N, 82.00°WCaloosahatchee — 27.04°N, 81.82°WOkeechobee — 27.53°N, 80.47°WItuzaingo — 31.68°S, 60.42°WAllingham — 19.72°S, 145.60°ENawata — 2.90°N, 36.05°ENawata or Nachukui — 2.90°N, 36.05°ENachukui — 2.90°N, 36.05°EBeglia — 34.00°N, 8.00°ESanta Maria di Ciciliano — 42.65°N, 12.49°EAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°WLance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WPuerto Madryn — 42.25°S, 64.31°WTemblor — 35.47°N, 118.91°WMoghara — 30.38°N, 28.82°EBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WTamiami — 27.37°N, 82.45°W

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The named rock units Ciconiiformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 80 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ciconiiformes and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ciconiiformes and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,755 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 103 sites for Ciconiiformes, 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

77 references

Each of the 128 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. 65 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 Ciconiiformes

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

No 3D scan of Ciconiiformes 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 itPelecanimorphae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bonaparte 1854)