Tachybaptus dominicus
The least grebe, an aquatic bird, is the smallest member of the grebe family. It occurs in the New World from the southwestern United States and Mexico to Argentina, and also on Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles.

Hector Bottai · 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
- least grebePBDB
- Sits inside
- TachybaptusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 10.3 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 1.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
3 occurrences of Tachybaptus dominicus 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
3 occurrences- Pleistocene67%
- Holocene33%
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.
Tachybaptus dominicus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tachybaptus dominicus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
276 taxa- Coragyps atratus3 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps3 sites
- Tyto alba3 sites
- Anas2 sites
- Ardea alba2 sites
- Athene cunicularia2 sites
- Bubo virginianus2 sites
- Buteo2 sites
- Cairina moschata2 sites
- Calidris minutilla2 sites
- Cathartes aura2 sites
- Charadrius semipalmatus2 sites
- Colinus virginianus2 sites
- Dendrocygna autumnalis2 sites
- Eptesicus2 sites
- Equus2 sites
- Eudocimus albus2 sites
- Falco sparverius2 sites
- Phalacrocorax brasilianus2 sites
- Polyborus plancus2 sites
- Porzana carolina2 sites
- Tapirus2 sites
- Tringa semipalmata2 sites
- Zenaida macroura2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Tachybaptus dominicus, 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- Prehistoric exploitation of birds on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico1
- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula1
- The non-passerine Pleistocene avifauna of the Talara Tar Seeps, northwestern Peru1
Each of the 3 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 content3
Picture of Tachybaptus dominicus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Hector Bottai
- 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
- Tachybaptus dominicus · KU:KUO:38038
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Least grebe”
- 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 itTachybaptus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1766)