Circus

A harrier is a member of the genus Circus in Accipitridae, a family of birds of prey. Harriers characteristically hunt by flying low over open ground, feeding on small mammals, reptiles, or birds. The young of the species are sometimes referred to as ring-tail harriers. They are distinctive with long wings, a long narrow tail, the slow and low flight over grasslands and skull peculiarities. The harriers are thought to have diversified with the expansion of grasslands and the emergence of C4 grasses about 6 to 8 million years ago during the Late Miocene and Pliocene.

Circus

Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain · 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
Also called
harrierPBDB
Sits inside
AccipitridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Accipitridae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Accipitridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Accipitridae

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 36 occurrencesPleistocene — about 21 of 36 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 15 of 36 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 28 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

36 occurrences of Circus 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

36 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.

Circus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Circus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

759 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Circus, 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

25 references

Each of the 36 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. 13 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 content3

Picture of Circus

Credit
Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Circus cyaneus · BRUCE:2016.01.133:BRUCE2016_01_133

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
Qutiix
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itAccipitridae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lacépède 1799