Corvidae

Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, magpies, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial terms, the crow family is made up of corvids; currently 135 species are included. The genus Corvus containing 47 species makes up over a third of the entire family. The raven is the largest passerine bird.

Corvidae

Alexis Lours · CC BY 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
PasseriformesPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 492 occurrencesMiocene — about 5 of 492 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 5 of 492 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 389 of 492 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences10–9.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences9.4–8.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.6–7.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.8–7.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences7.1–6.3 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences6.3–5.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.7–3.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.9–3.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.1–2.4 Mya — about 5 occurrences2.4–1.6 Mya — about 20 occurrences1.6–785 ka Mya — about 35 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 423 occurrences12.5 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

492 occurrences of Corvidae 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

492 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

12 formations

Hillgrove — 45.13°S, 170.97°EWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WNubia — 16.25°N, 33.75°EYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WPawnee Creek — 40.90°N, 103.48°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WCromer Forest Bed — 52.94°N, 1.25°EEdelény — 48.39°N, 20.64°Efacies à Congeria — 45.05°N, 7.93°EGerakarou — 40.52°N, 23.44°ETecolote — 34.01°N, 120.17°W

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The named rock units Corvidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 474 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Corvidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Corvidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

3,016 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 261 sites for Corvidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

138 references

Each of the 492 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. 126 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 Corvidae

Credit
Alexis Lours
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

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

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 itPasseriformes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vigors 1825