Cracidae

The chachalacas, guans, and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches southernmost parts of Texas in the United States. Two species, the Trinidad piping guan and the rufous-vented chachalaca occur on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago respectively.

Cracidae

Crax_daubentoni_-Philadelphia_Zoo_-female-8a.jpg : Jim Capaldi from Springfield, USA derivative work: Snowmanradio (… · CC BY 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
Sits inside
GalliformesPBDB
Diet
frugivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 29 million years on record.

The record covers at least 29.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 31.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 14 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 14 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 14 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences11–9.7 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences9.7–8.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences29.5 Mya11.7 ka32.4 Mya0 Mya

14 occurrences of Cracidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

14 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

8 formations

Snake Creek — 42.40°N, 103.80°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WPungo River — 35.40°N, 76.80°WMarsland — 42.42°N, 103.87°WBrule — 43.78°N, 102.55°WPawnee Creek — 40.90°N, 103.28°WAlachua — 29.70°N, 82.60°WBatesland — 43.13°N, 101.87°W

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The named rock units Cracidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cracidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cracidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

686 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Cracidae, 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

12 references

Each of the 14 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 content1

Picture of Cracidae

Credit
Crax_daubentoni_-Philadelphia_Zoo_-female-8a.jpg : Jim Capaldi from Springfield, USA derivative work: Snowmanradio (…
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cracidae 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 itGalliformes through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

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