Porphyrio melanotus
The Australasian swamphen, commonly known as the pūkeko in New Zealand, is a striking and socially complex bird found in Oceania, including eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. A member of the rail family, it is part of the diverse order Gruiformes, which includes species with similar characteristics such as cranes and other rail species. Within the Australasian swamphen species, five recognised subspecies exist, with P. m. melanotus being the most common and widely distributed in New Zealand. They display phenotypic characteristics typical of rails: relatively short wings and strong, elongated bills, adapted to its semi-aquatic lifestyle in wetlands.
Charles J. Sharp · 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
- Australasian swamphenPBDB
- Sits inside
- PorphyrioPBDB
- 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 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
17 occurrences of Porphyrio melanotus 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
17 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Porphyrio melanotus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Porphyrio melanotus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
102 taxa- Aerodramus spodiopygius8 sites
- Ducula pacifica8 sites
- Zapornia tabuensis8 sites
- Gallirallus philippensis7 sites
- Gallus gallus7 sites
- Tyto alba7 sites
- Columbidae6 sites
- Accipiter efficax4 sites
- Alopecoenas stairi4 sites
- Columba vitiensis4 sites
- Gallirallus lafresnayanus4 sites
- Porphyrio kukwiedei4 sites
- Rattus exulans4 sites
- Sylviornis neocaledoniae4 sites
- Accipiter fasciatus3 sites
- Aegotheles savesi3 sites
- Ardenna pacifica3 sites
- Cacomantis flabelliformis3 sites
- Caloenas canacorum3 sites
- Collocalia esculenta3 sites
- Didunculus placopedetes3 sites
- Ducula goliath3 sites
- Ducula shutleri3 sites
- Eclectus infectus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Porphyrio melanotus, 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
4 references- Fossil and archaeological avifauna of Niue Island, Pacific Ocean9
- Faunal extinction and human habitation in New Caledonia: initial results and implications of new research at the Pindai Caves4
- Prehistoric avifaunas from the Kingdom of Tonga3
- Avifauna from the Teouma Lapita site, Efate Island, Vanuatu, including a new genus and species of megapode1
Each of the 17 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 Porphyrio melanotus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Porphyrio melanotus was found in Sketchfab.
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 itPorphyrio through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Temminck 1820