Cuculus canorus

The cuckoo, common cuckoo, European cuckoo or Eurasian cuckoo is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals.

Cuculus canorus

Andy Morffew from Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, UK · 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
Also called
common cuckooPBDB
Sits inside
CuculusPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Cuculidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Cuculidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Cuculidae
Mass
106 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 4 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 4 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.5 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 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–997 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences767 ka–690 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences690 ka–613 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences613 ka–537 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences537 ka–460 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences460 ka–383 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences383 ka–307 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences307 ka–230 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences230 ka–153 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153 ka–77 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence774 ka129 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Cuculus canorus 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

4 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.

Cuculus canorus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Cuculus canorus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

179 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Cuculus canorus, 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

4 references

Each of the 4 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 Cuculus canorus

Credit
Andy Morffew from Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, UK
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
MooreLab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itCuculus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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