Crex crex

The corn crake, corncrake or landrail is a bird in the rail family. It breeds in Europe and Asia as far east as western China, and migrates to Africa for the Northern Hemisphere's winter. It is a medium-sized crake with buff- or grey-streaked brownish-black upperparts, chestnut markings on the wings, and blue-grey underparts with rust-coloured and white bars on the flanks and undertail. The strong bill is flesh-toned, the iris is pale brown, and the legs and feet are pale grey. Juveniles are similar in plumage to adults, and downy chicks are black, as with all rails. There are no subspecies, although individuals from the east of the breeding range tend to be slightly paler than their western counterparts. The male's call is a loud krek krek, from which the scientific name is derived. The corn crake is larger than its closest relative, the African crake, which shares its wintering range; that species is also darker-plumaged, and has a plainer face.

Crex crex

Alpo Roikola · CC BY 3.0 · 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
corn crakePBDB
Sits inside
CrexPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Mass
13.2 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 6 of 7 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 7 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.5–1.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.1–997 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences767 ka–690 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences690 ka–613 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences613 ka–537 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences537 ka–460 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences460 ka–383 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences383 ka–307 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences307 ka–230 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230 ka–153 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences153 ka–77 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

7 occurrences of Crex crex 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

7 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.

Crex crex and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Crex crex and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

145 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Crex crex, 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

6 references

Each of the 7 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 content2

Picture of Crex crex

Credit
Alpo Roikola
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Crex crex · NHMUK:ZOO:S/1986.49.3

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 itCrex through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)