Nycticorax

Nycticorax is a genus of night herons. The name Nycticorax means "night raven" and derives from the Ancient Greek νύκτος, nuktos "night" and κοραξ, korax, "raven". It refers to the largely nocturnal feeding habits of this group of birds, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the black-crowned night heron.

Nycticorax

Charles Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife · 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
night heronPBDB
Sits inside
ArdeidaePBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae

Time the record covers

At least 27 million years on record.

The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 0 of 27 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 27 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 27 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 27 occurrencesPleistocene — about 12 of 27 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.2–8.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.1–6.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.9–5.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.8–4.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.2–0 Mya — about 25 occurrences27.3 Mya11.7 ka34.6 Mya0 Mya

27 occurrences of Nycticorax 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

27 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

2 formations

Alachua — 29.65°N, 82.60°WJebel Qatrani — 29.45°N, 30.58°E

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The named rock units Nycticorax has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

508 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Nycticorax, 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

25 references

Each of the 27 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. 13 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 content2

Picture of Nycticorax

Credit
Charles Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itArdeidae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Forster 1817