Falco mexicanus

The prairie falcon is a medium-sized falcon found in Western North America. A separate species from the peregrine falcon, with which it shares some visual similarities, the prairie falcon is, essentially, an arid-climate divergence of earlier peregrine falcon lineage. It is thus able to thrive on a more meager, opportunistic diet compared to that of the peregrine, and is generally lighter in weight than a peregrine of similar wingspan. Having evolved in harsher and desert environments, often with low prey density, the prairie falcon has developed into an aggressive and opportunistic hunter of a wide range of both mammalian and avian prey, as well as occasional reptiles. It will regularly take prey from the size of sparrows or finches to birds approximately its own weight, and occasionally much larger.

Falco mexicanus

U.S. Geological Survey · 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
Prairie falconPBDB
Sits inside
FalcoPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Falconidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae

Time the record covers

At least 2 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 210 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 9 of 10 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 10 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences14 ka – 11.7 ka710 ka0 Mya

10 occurrences of Falco mexicanus 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

10 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.

Falco mexicanus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Falco mexicanus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

345 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Falco mexicanus, 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

8 references

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 content2

Picture of Falco mexicanus

Credit
U.S. Geological Survey
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
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 itFalco through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Schlegel 1850)