Phalacrocorax
Phalacrocorax is a genus of fish-eating birds in the cormorant family Phalacrocoracidae. Members of this genus are sometimes informally known as the Old World cormorants, though their distribution is not confined to the Old World, nor are they the only cormorants in the Old World.

MPF · 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
- cormorantPBDB
- Sits inside
- PhalacrocoracidaePBDB
- 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 23 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
278 occurrences of Phalacrocorax 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
278 occurrences- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene13%
- Pliocene10%
- Pleistocene40%
- Holocene37%
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
33 formations
- San Diego Formation10
- Pisco Formation8
- Hillgrove Formation6
- Peace River Formation · Hawthorn Group5
- Adu Asa Formation5
- Olduvai Formation4
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The named rock units Phalacrocorax has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 201 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Phalacrocorax and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Phalacrocorax and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
2,666 taxa- Larus32 sites
- Anas27 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos25 sites
- Ardenna grisea25 sites
- Branta canadensis25 sites
- Ardea herodias22 sites
- Tyto alba22 sites
- Uria aalge22 sites
- Anatinae21 sites
- Equus21 sites
- Anserinae20 sites
- Corvus corax20 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus20 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis19 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus19 sites
- Anser caerulescens18 sites
- Buteo18 sites
- Numenius americanus18 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis18 sites
- Aythya17 sites
- Corvus brachyrhynchos17 sites
- Melanitta17 sites
- Mergus serrator17 sites
- Ptychoramphus aleuticus17 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 190 sites for Phalacrocorax, 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
120 references- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna54
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand14
- Seabirds and Late Pleistocene marine environments in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean8
- Fossil birds of the San Diego Formation, Late Pliocene, Blancan, San Diego County, California8
- Seasonal exploitation of seabirds by Late Holocene coastal foragers: Analysis of modern and archaeological data from Western Cape, South Africa8
- A catalogue of British Pleistocene birds identified by Colin JO Harrison and stored in the Natural History Museum, London, (Department of Palaeontology)7
- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island7
- Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand6
- Fossil birds from the Late Miocene of Chad and Ethiopia and zooge- ographical implications5
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California5
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits4
- A middle Pleistocene bird community from Saint Lucie County, Florida4
Each of the 278 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. 108 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 Phalacrocorax
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- MPF
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Phalacrocorax capensis · l-jz:JZ:63
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itPhalacrocoracidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brisson 1760