Plectrophenax nivalis

The snow bunting is a passerine bird in the family Calcariidae. It is an Arctic specialist, with a circumpolar Arctic breeding range throughout the northern hemisphere. There are small isolated populations on a few high mountain tops south of the Arctic region, including the Cairngorms in central Scotland and the Saint Elias Mountains on the southern Alaska-Yukon border, as well as the Cape Breton Highlands. The snow bunting is the most northerly recorded passerine in the world.

Plectrophenax nivalis

Drew Avery · 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
snow buntingPBDB
Sits inside
PlectrophenaxPBDB
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 most 2.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 5 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 2 of 5 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences3.08 Mya0 Mya

5 occurrences of Plectrophenax nivalis 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

5 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.

Plectrophenax nivalis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Plectrophenax nivalis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

89 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Plectrophenax nivalis, 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

5 references

Each of the 5 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 Plectrophenax nivalis

Credit
Drew Avery
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Plectrophenax nivalis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itPlectrophenax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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