Porphyrio porphyrio
The western swamphen is a species of swamphen in the rail family Rallidae, one of the six species of purple swamphen. This chicken-sized bird, with its large feet, bright plumage and red bill and frontal shield is easily recognisable in its native range. It used to be considered the nominate subspecies of the purple swamphen, but is now recognised as a separate species. The western swamphen is found in wetlands in Spain, Portugal, southeastern France, Italy and northwestern Africa.
Andreas Trepte · 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
- western 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 least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
23 occurrences of Porphyrio porphyrio 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
23 occurrences- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene17%
- Holocene79%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Porphyrio porphyrio has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
261 taxa- Gallus gallus12 sites
- Anous stolidus8 sites
- Gallirallus philippensis7 sites
- Phaethon lepturus6 sites
- Sula sula6 sites
- Anous minutus5 sites
- Ducula pacifica5 sites
- Pluvialis dominica4 sites
- Sterninae4 sites
- Urodynamis taitensis4 sites
- Anas superciliosa3 sites
- Aplonis tabuensis3 sites
- Galliformes3 sites
- Larus3 sites
- Megapodius freycinet3 sites
- Phalacrocorax3 sites
- Procellariidae3 sites
- Pseudobulweria rostrata3 sites
- Rallidae3 sites
- Sula3 sites
- Tringa incana3 sites
- Zapornia tabuensis3 sites
- Accipiter2 sites
- Aepyornis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Porphyrio porphyrio, 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
9 references- Extinction, biogeography, and human exploitation of birds on Tikopia and Anuta, Polynesian outliers in the Solomon Islands11
- Prehistoric butchery and consumption of birds in the Kingdom of Tonga, south Pacific3
- Holocene bird subfossils from the sites of Ampasambazimba, Antsirabe and Ampoza, Madagascar: changes in the avifauna of south central Madagascar over the past few millennia2
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand2
- The ornithological remains from Marathousa 1 (Middle Pleistocene; Megalopolis Basin, Greece)1
- Exploitation of a seasonal resource: bird hunting during the late Natufian at Shubayqa 11
- Prehistoric birds from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea: extinctions on a large Melanesian island1
- Birds from the Bluffs Downs Local Fauna, Allingham Formation, Queensland1
- Biogeography of Tongan birds before and after human impact1
Each of the 23 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 content3
Picture of Porphyrio porphyrio
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Andreas Trepte
- 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
- Porphyrio madagascariensis · l-jz:JZ:102
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itPorphyrio through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)