Synthliboramphus
Synthliboramphus is a small genus of seabirds in the auk family from the North Pacific. The genus name Synthliboramphus is from Ancient Greek sunthlibo, "to compress", and rhamphos, "bill". The English name "Murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot.

Eric Ellingson · CC BY 2.0 · 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- Sits inside
- AlcinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.
41 occurrences of Synthliboramphus 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
41 occurrences- Miocene2%
- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene77%
- Holocene8%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Synthliboramphus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 32 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Synthliboramphus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Synthliboramphus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
390 taxa- Ptychoramphus aleuticus22 sites
- Chendytes lawi14 sites
- Uria aalge13 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus12 sites
- Ardenna grisea11 sites
- Branta canadensis11 sites
- Fratercula dowi11 sites
- Fulmarus glacialis11 sites
- Puffinus opisthomelas11 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis10 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis9 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus9 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus9 sites
- Anser caerulescens8 sites
- Melanitta perspicillata8 sites
- Phalacrocorax pelagicus8 sites
- Tyto alba8 sites
- Ardenna tenuirostris7 sites
- Fratercula cirrhata7 sites
- Larus californicus7 sites
- Melanitta fusca7 sites
- Melospiza melodia7 sites
- Asio priscus6 sites
- Cepphus columba6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Synthliboramphus, 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
13 references- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island10
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California7
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits6
- Fossil birds of the San Diego Formation, Late Pliocene, Blancan, San Diego County, California6
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa3
- A zooarchaeological study at Buldir Island, Western Aleutians, Alaska2
- Pleistocene seabirds from Shiriya, northeast Japan: systematics and oceanographic context1
- Dynamics of sea mammal and bird populations of the Bearing Sea region over the last several millennia1
- The seabird fossil record and the role of paleontology in understanding seabird community structure1
- The fossil marine vertebrate fauna of the latest Miocene Almejas Formation, Isla Cedros, Baja California, Mexico1
- Quaternary vertebrates from Shiriya area, Shimokita Pininsula, northeastern Japan1
- Remains of Pleistocene birds from Isla de Guadalupe, Mexico1
Each of the 41 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. 1 further reference is 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 content2
Picture of Synthliboramphus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Eric Ellingson
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- LACM Ornithology
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Synthliboramphus craveri · LACM:Birds:87297
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 itAlcinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brandt 1837