Podiceps auritus

The horned grebe or Slavonian grebe is a relatively small and threatened species of waterbird in the family Podicipedidae. There are two subspecies, P. a. auritus, which breeds in Eurasia, and P. a. cornutus, which breeds in North America. The Eurasian subspecies is distributed over most of northern Europe and northern Asia, breeding from Iceland east to the Russian Far East. The North American subspecies spans most of Canada and some of the United States. A small population was cited in Greenland in 1973, but is not mapped or further mentioned by subsequent authors.

Podiceps auritus

Ekaterina Chernetsova (Papchinskaya) from Saint-Petersburg, Russia · 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
horned grebePBDB
Sits inside
PodicepsPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Mass
22.5 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 7.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 20 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 20 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 11 of 20 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 4 of 20 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.7–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.5–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.7–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–6.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–4.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.9–4.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.4–4.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.0–3.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.6–3.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.2–2.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.8–2.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.4–2.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.0–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.2–809 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences809 ka–404 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences404 ka–0 Mya — about 14 occurrences7.246 Mya11.7 ka12.1 Mya0 Mya

20 occurrences of Podiceps auritus 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

20 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

6 formations

Yorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WAcredale — 36.79°N, 76.17°WNuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WKempsville — 36.79°N, 76.17°WPeace River — 27.74°N, 81.93°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Podiceps auritus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Podiceps auritus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Podiceps auritus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

959 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Podiceps auritus, 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

17 references

Each of the 20 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. 5 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 Podiceps auritus

Credit
Ekaterina Chernetsova (Papchinskaya) from Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Licence
CC BY 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
Podiceps auritus cornutus · FMNH:Birds:518996

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 itPodiceps through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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