Lophodytes cucullatus

The hooded merganser is a species of fish-eating duck in the subfamily Anatinae. It is the only extant species in the genus Lophodytes. The genus name derives from the Greek language: lophos meaning 'crest', and dutes meaning 'diver'. The bird is striking in appearance; both sexes have crests that they can raise or lower, and the breeding plumage of the male is handsomely patterned and coloured. The hooded merganser has a sawbill but is not classified as a typical merganser.

Lophodytes cucullatus

Rhododendrites · 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
hooded merganserPBDB
Sits inside
LophodytesPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Anatinae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Anatinae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Anatinae

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 8 of 8 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 8 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

8 occurrences of Lophodytes cucullatus 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

8 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.

Lophodytes cucullatus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Lophodytes cucullatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

376 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Lophodytes cucullatus, 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 8 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 Lophodytes cucullatus

Credit
Rhododendrites
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lophodytes cucullatus 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 itLophodytes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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