Megapodius

The scrubfowl are mound-builders in the genus Megapodius. They are found from Southeast Asia to northern Australia and islands in the west Pacific.

Megapodius

Andrea Arbogast · CC BY-SA 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
scrubfowlPBDB
Sits inside
MegapodiidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Galliformes
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Galliformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

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.

Pleistocene — about 10 of 54 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 44 of 54 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 44 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

54 occurrences of Megapodius 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

54 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.

Megapodius and its relatives

Holocene

Where Megapodius and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

201 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 40 sites for Megapodius, 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

16 references

Each of the 54 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. 4 further references are not listed. 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 content3

Picture of Megapodius

Credit
Andrea Arbogast
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Megapodius nicobariensis · umzc:14-Meg-f 3

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
MooreLab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itMegapodiidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gaimard 1823