Suliformes
The order Suliformes is an order of birds that includes gannets, boobies, frigatebirds, cormorants and darters. The order is recognised by the International Ornithologist's Union. Regarding the recent evidence that the traditional Pelecaniformes is polyphyletic, it has been suggested that the group be divided to reflect the true evolutionary relationships; a 2017 study indicated that they are most closely related to Otidiformes (bustards) and Ciconiiformes (storks).

Alan D. Wilson · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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- Sits inside
- PelecanimorphaePBDB
- 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 65 million years on record.
The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.
742 occurrences of Suliformes 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
742 occurrences- Late Cretaceousunder 1%
- Eocene3%
- Oligocene8%
- Miocene22%
- Pliocene8%
- Pleistocene21%
- Holocene39%
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
98 formations
- Pisco Formation28
- San Diego Formation24
- Monterey Formation12
- Makah Formation11
- Temblor Formation10
- Green River Formation9
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The named rock units Suliformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 74 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 448 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
4,465 taxa- Phalacrocorax27 sites
- Otodus megalodon23 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis22 sites
- Equus21 sites
- Aves19 sites
- Phalacrocorax carbo19 sites
- Carcharhinus18 sites
- Myliobatis17 sites
- Anatidae16 sites
- Phalacrocorax auritus16 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus16 sites
- Branta canadensis15 sites
- Sula15 sites
- Larus14 sites
- Morus bassanus14 sites
- Ptychoramphus aleuticus14 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos13 sites
- Ardenna grisea13 sites
- Mysticeti13 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps13 sites
- Uria aalge13 sites
- Balaenopteridae12 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis12 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias12 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 452 sites for Suliformes, and this reads 240 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
265 references- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna54
- Extinction, biogeography, and human exploitation of birds on Tikopia and Anuta, Polynesian outliers in the Solomon Islands44
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand20
- Fossil birds of the San Diego Formation, Late Pliocene, Blancan, San Diego County, California20
- The fossil birds of Henderson Island, Pitcairn Group: natural turnover and human impact, a synopsis15
- Avian remains from late pre-colonial Amerindian sites on islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean13
- Seasonal exploitation of seabirds by Late Holocene coastal foragers: Analysis of modern and archaeological data from Western Cape, South Africa13
- A specimen-based approach to reconstructing the late Neogene seabird communities of California12
- The avifauna of the Grund Beds (Middle Miocene, Early Badenian, northern Austria)12
- Seabirds and Late Pleistocene marine environments in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean11
- Fossil birds from the Late Miocene of Chad and Ethiopia and zooge- ographical implications10
- Miocene and Pliocene birds from the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina10
Each of the 742 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. 253 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 content1
Picture of Suliformes
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Alan D. Wilson
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Suliformes”
- 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 itPelecanimorphae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sharpe 1891