Dendrocygna bicolor

The fulvous whistling duck or fulvous tree duck is a species of whistling duck that breeds across the world's tropical regions in much of Mexico and South America, the West Indies, the southern United States, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It has plumage that is mainly reddish brown, long legs and a long grey bill, and shows a distinctive white band across its black tail in flight. Like other members of its ancient lineage, it has a whistling call which is given in flight or on the ground. Its preferred habitat consists of wetlands with plentiful vegetation, including shallow lakes and paddy fields. The nest, built from plant material and unlined, is placed among dense vegetation or in a tree hole. The typical clutch is around ten whitish eggs. The breeding adults, which pair for life, take turns to incubate, and the eggs hatch in 24–29 days. The downy grey ducklings leave the nest within a day or so of hatching, but the parents continue to protect them until they fledge around nine weeks later.

Dendrocygna bicolor

JeffreyGammon · 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
Also called
fulvous whistling-duckPBDB
Sits inside
DendrocygnaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Anseriformes
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Anseriformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Mass
52 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 129 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 2 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence629 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Dendrocygna bicolor 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

2 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.

Dendrocygna bicolor and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Dendrocygna bicolor and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

124 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Dendrocygna bicolor, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Dendrocygna bicolor

Credit
JeffreyGammon
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Dendrocygna bicolor · MCZ:Orn:347071

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 itDendrocygna through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Vieillot 1816)