Gavia arctica

The black-throated loon, also known as the Arctic loon and the black-throated diver, is a migratory aquatic bird found in the Northern Hemisphere, primarily breeding in freshwater lakes in northern Europe and Asia. It winters along sheltered, ice-free coasts of the north-east Atlantic Ocean and the eastern and western Pacific Ocean. This loon was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 and has two subspecies. It was previously considered to be the same species as the Pacific loon, of which it is traditionally considered to be a sister species, although this is debated. In a study that used mitochondrial and nuclear intron DNA, the black-throated loon was found to be sister to a clade consisting of the Pacific loon and two sister species, the common loon and the yellow-billed loon.

Gavia arctica

Uncredited · 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
Arctic loonPBDB
Sits inside
GaviaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 12 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 8 of 12 occurrences807 ka–764 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences764 ka–722 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences722 ka–679 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences679 ka–637 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 ka–595 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences595 ka–552 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences552 ka–510 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510 ka–467 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences467 ka–425 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425 ka–382 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences382 ka–340 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340 ka–297 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences297 ka–255 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences255 ka–212 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212 ka–170 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences170 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences127 ka–85 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences85 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences42 ka–0 Mya — about 9 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka1.27 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Gavia arctica on record. 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

12 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.

Found in

3 formations

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WManix — 34.80°N, 117.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Gavia arctica has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

285 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Gavia arctica, 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

11 references

Each of the 12 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 Gavia arctica

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itGavia through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)