Pterodroma lessonii
The white-headed petrel, also known as the white-headed fulmar, is a species of seabird in the petrel family, Procellariidae. It is about 400 mm (16 in) in length.

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · 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
- white-headed petrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- PterodromaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Procellariiformes
- Mass
- 708 gWikidata
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.
5 occurrences of Pterodroma lessonii 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
5 occurrencesThese 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
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group1
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The named rock units Pterodroma lessonii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
469 taxa- Ardenna tenuirostris2 sites
- Halobaena caerulea2 sites
- Pachyptila desolata2 sites
- Pelecanoides urinatrix2 sites
- Puffinus assimilis elegans2 sites
- <Brotulid>1 site
- Acanthocybium solandri1 site
- Accipitridae1 site
- Acipenser oxyrhynchus1 site
- Actinocythereis1 site
- Actinocythereis captionis1 site
- Acuticythereis1 site
- Aethiinae1 site
- Aetobatus1 site
- Agonidae1 site
- Alca1 site
- Alca ausonia1 site
- Alca carolinensis1 site
- Alca minor1 site
- Alca olsoni1 site
- Alca torda1 site
- Alopias vulpinus1 site
- Alosa sapidissima1 site
- Aluterus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Pterodroma lessonii, 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
3 references- Holocene fossil bird remains from subantarctic Macquarie Island3
- Miocene and Pliocene birds from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina1
- Fossils indicate Pelecanoides georgicus had large colonies at Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand1
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 content2
Picture of Pterodroma lessonii
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Pterodroma lessonii · UMMZ:birds:213086
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 itPterodroma through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Garnot 1826)