Fratercula dowi
Dow's puffin is an extinct seabird in the auk family described in 2000 from subfossil remains found in the Channel Islands of California. It was approximately as large as the modern horned puffin and its beak appeared to have been an intermediate between the rhinoceros auklet and the horned puffin. It lived during the Late Pleistocene and Early Pleistocene on the Channel Islands, where it nested alongside the ancient murrelet, Cassin's auklet and Chendytes lawi.
No picture of Fratercula dowi was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Fratercula dowi, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- FraterculaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
18 occurrences of Fratercula dowi on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
18 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Fratercula dowi and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Fratercula dowi and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
61 taxa- Ptychoramphus aleuticus14 sites
- Chendytes lawi12 sites
- Synthliboramphus antiquus11 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus8 sites
- Uria aalge8 sites
- Anser caerulescens6 sites
- Ardenna grisea6 sites
- Ardenna tenuirostris6 sites
- Branta canadensis6 sites
- Fulmarus glacialis6 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus6 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis6 sites
- Puffinus opisthomelas6 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis5 sites
- Melanitta fusca5 sites
- Melanitta perspicillata5 sites
- Phalacrocorax pelagicus5 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus5 sites
- Tyto alba5 sites
- Aechmophorus4 sites
- Gavia pacifica4 sites
- Gymnogyps californianus4 sites
- Larus californicus4 sites
- Polyborus plancus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Fratercula dowi, 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
3 references- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island14
- An extinct Late Pleistocene Puffin from the Southern California Channel Islands. (Aves: Alcidae)3
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California1
Each of the 18 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content0
No picture of Fratercula dowi was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.
Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Fratercula dowi, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
No 3D scan of Fratercula dowi 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 itFratercula through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Guthrie et al. 2000