Dendragapus obscurus
The dusky grouse is a species of forest-dwelling grouse native to the Rocky Mountains in North America. It is closely related to the sooty grouse, and the two were previously considered a single species, the blue grouse.

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
- dusky grousePBDB
- Sits inside
- DendragapusPBDB
- Diet
- granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae
- Mass
- 839 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 198 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
6 occurrences of Dendragapus obscurus 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene82%
- Holocene18%
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.
Dendragapus obscurus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Dendragapus obscurus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
275 taxa- Bubo virginianus4 sites
- Buteo4 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos4 sites
- Falco sparverius4 sites
- Anas3 sites
- Anas crecca3 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos3 sites
- Antigone canadensis3 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos3 sites
- Bubo sinclairi3 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis3 sites
- Canis latrans3 sites
- Canis lupus3 sites
- Centrocercus urophasianus3 sites
- Equus mexicanus3 sites
- Martes americana3 sites
- Neogale frenata3 sites
- Puma concolor3 sites
- Vulpes vulpes3 sites
- Accipiter gentilis2 sites
- Accipiter striatus2 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus2 sites
- Anas acuta2 sites
- Anserinae2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Dendragapus obscurus, 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
5 references- Avifauna of the Pleistocene cave deposits of California2
- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna1
- The early and middle Pleistocene avifauna from Porcupine Cave1
- The late Pleistocene avifauna of Crystal Ball Cave, Utah1
- The late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) avifauna of Little Box Elder Cave, Wyoming1
Each of the 6 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 Dendragapus obscurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- ISM Zoology Collection
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Dendragapus obscurus · ISM:ISM-Aves:689187
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 itDendragapus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1823)