Leptosomus discolor
The cuckoo-roller or courol is the only bird in the family Leptosomidae, which was previously often placed in the order Coraciiformes but is now placed in its own order Leptosomiformes. The cuckoo-roller is at the root of a group that contains the Trogoniformes, Bucerotiformes, Piciformes, and Coraciiformes. Despite its name, the cuckoo-roller does not share close evolutionary origins with cuckoos or rollers, although for long it was counted among the closer relatives of the latter.

Brian Ralphs from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- Cuckoo rollerPBDB
- Sits inside
- LeptosomusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 255 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.
3 occurrences of Leptosomus discolor 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
3 occurrences- Pleistocene30%
- Holocene70%
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.
Leptosomus discolor and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Leptosomus discolor and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
74 taxa- Accipiter madagascariensis3 sites
- Coua cristata3 sites
- Coua gigas3 sites
- Eurystomus glaucurus3 sites
- Lophotibis cristata3 sites
- Numida meleagris3 sites
- Archaeolemur edwardsi2 sites
- Avahi cleesei2 sites
- Babakotia radofilai2 sites
- Buteo2 sites
- Capra aegagrus2 sites
- cf. Boophinae indet.2 sites
- Chaerephon leucogastert2 sites
- Cheirogaleus medius2 sites
- Coracopsis nigra2 sites
- Coua2 sites
- Cryptoprocta2 sites
- Cryptoprocta ferox2 sites
- Dryolimnas cuvieri2 sites
- Eliurus2 sites
- Erymnochelys madagascariensis2 sites
- Eulemur mongoz2 sites
- Eulemur rufus2 sites
- Felis lybica2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Leptosomus discolor, 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- Subfossil lemur discoveries from the Beanka Protected Area in western Madagascar2
- Bird fossils from Ankilitelo Cave: inference about Holocene environmental changes in southwestern Madagascar1
Each of the 3 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 content1
Picture of Leptosomus discolor
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Brian Ralphs from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Leptosomus discolor was found in Sketchfab.
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 itLeptosomus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hermann 1783)