Ptilonorhynchus violaceus
The satin bowerbird is a species of passerine bird in the bowerbird family Ptilonorhynchidae that is endemic to eastern Australia. It is the only species placed in the genus Ptilonorhynchus.

JJ Harrison · 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
- satin bowerbirdPBDB
- Sits inside
- PtilonorhynchusPBDB
- Diet
- frugivorePBDB, for Ptilonorhynchidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Ptilonorhynchidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ptilonorhynchidae
- Mass
- 20 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Ptilonorhynchus violaceus 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
2 occurrences- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene50%
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.
Ptilonorhynchus violaceus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ptilonorhynchus violaceus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
42 taxa- Cinclosoma punctatum2 sites
- Coturnix2 sites
- Platycercus elegans2 sites
- Turnix varius2 sites
- Accipiter fasciatus1 site
- Aegotheles cristatus1 site
- Alisterus scapularis1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anthochaera carunculata1 site
- Anthochaera chrysoptera1 site
- Atrichornis rufescens1 site
- Aves1 site
- Cacatua tenuirostris1 site
- Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae1 site
- Chrysococcyx1 site
- Climacteris1 site
- Corvus1 site
- Cracticidae1 site
- Dasyornis brachypterus1 site
- Dasyornis broadbenti1 site
- Eolophus roseicapilla1 site
- Eudyptula minor1 site
- Eurostopodus mystacalis1 site
- Falco cenchroides1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, 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
2 references- Pleistocene avian fossils from Pyramids Cave (M-89), eastern Victoria, Australia1
- Fossil avian assemblage of Pitfall Origin from Holocene sediments in Amphitheatre Cave (G-2), South-western Victoria, Australia1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Ptilonorhynchus violaceus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- darwinmuseum.ru
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
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 itPtilonorhynchus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Vieillot 1816)