Tetrax tetrax
The little bustard is a bird in the bustard family, the only member of the genus Tetrax. It breeds in Southern Europe and in Western and Central Asia.

Francesco Veronesi · CC BY-SA 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- Also called
- little bustardPBDB
- Sits inside
- TetraxPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 41 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.
7 occurrences of Tetrax tetrax 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
7 occurrences- Pleistocene71%
- Holocene29%
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.
Tetrax tetrax and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tetrax tetrax and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
129 taxa- Columba livia3 sites
- Otis tarda3 sites
- Turdus merula3 sites
- Alauda arvensis2 sites
- Alectoris2 sites
- Anas2 sites
- Anser albifrons2 sites
- Athene noctua2 sites
- Branta bernicla2 sites
- Bubo bubo2 sites
- Calandrella2 sites
- Calidris pugnax2 sites
- Corvus corone2 sites
- Corvus pliocaenus2 sites
- Cricetus cricetus2 sites
- Falco peregrinus2 sites
- Galerida2 sites
- Garrulus glandarius2 sites
- Grus grus2 sites
- Melanocorypha calandra2 sites
- Palaeocryptonyx donnezani2 sites
- Perdix palaeoperdix2 sites
- Pica pica2 sites
- Pterocles orientalis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Tetrax tetrax, 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
6 references- Early Pleistocene birds from Pirro Nord (Puglia, southern Italy)2
- The fossil bird associations from the early Middle Pleistocene of the Ragusa province (SE Sicily, Italy)1
- Faunal remains from Alcáçova de Santarém, Portugal1
- Biostratigraphy of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Corsica and the role of man in the Holocene faunal turnover1
- Pleistocene and prehistoric birds of south-west Britain1
- New microstratigraphic horizons in the vertebrate chronology of the Hungarian Pleistocene1
Each of the 7 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 Tetrax tetrax
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Francesco Veronesi
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows 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 itTetrax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)