Egretta sacra
The Pacific reef heron, also known as the eastern reef heron or eastern reef egret, is a species of heron found throughout southern Asia and Oceania. It occurs in two colour morphs with either slaty grey or pure white plumage. The sexes are similar in appearance.

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · CC BY-SA 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
- Pacific reef-heronPBDB
- Sits inside
- EgrettaPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae
- Mass
- 28 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.
10 occurrences of Egretta sacra on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
10 occurrences- Pleistocene9%
- Holocene91%
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.
Egretta sacra and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Egretta sacra and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
111 taxa- Anous stolidus5 sites
- Gygis alba5 sites
- Phaethon lepturus5 sites
- Gallus gallus4 sites
- Pseudobulweria rostrata4 sites
- Puffinus lherminieri4 sites
- Ardenna pacifica3 sites
- Emballonura semicaudata3 sites
- Fregata3 sites
- Fregata ariel3 sites
- Fregata minor3 sites
- Numenius tahitiensis3 sites
- Procellariidae3 sites
- Pterodroma3 sites
- Pteropus3 sites
- Sula sula3 sites
- Zapornia tabuensis3 sites
- Alopecoenas erythropterus2 sites
- Alopecoenas xanthonurus2 sites
- Anous minutus2 sites
- Aplonis opaca2 sites
- Butorides striata2 sites
- Ducula galeata2 sites
- Gekkonidae2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Egretta sacra, 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
9 references- Extinct and extirpated birds from Rota, Mariana Islands2
- New prehistoric avifaunas from the Gambier Group, French Polynesia1
- Life on the edge: prehistoric settlement and economy on Utrōk Atoll, northern Marshall Islands1
- The prehistory of vertebrates, especially birds, on Tinian, Aguiguan, and Rota, Northern Mariana Islands1
- Prehistoric birds from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea: extinctions on a large Melanesian island1
- Bird bones from the To’aga site: prehistoric loss of seabirds and megapodes1
- Extinction and biogeography of birds on Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia1
- Extinct and extirpated birds from Aitutaki and Atiu, southern Cook Islands1
- Extinction of birds in eastern Polynesia: A review of the record, and comparison with other Pacific island groups1
Each of the 10 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 Egretta sacra
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Egretta sacra was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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 itEgretta through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1789)