Turnix maculosus
The red-backed buttonquail is a species of bird in the family Turnicidae. It is found in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands. Other names by which it is known in different parts of its range include black-backed, black-spotted and orange-breasted buttonquail. There are fourteen recognised subspecies.

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · 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
- red-backed buttonquailPBDB
- Sits inside
- TurnixPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 45 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 118 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Turnix maculosus 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- Pleistocene100%
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.
Turnix maculosus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Turnix maculosus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- Charadriiformes2 sites
- Columba vitiensis2 sites
- Columbidae2 sites
- Haliaeetus leucogaster2 sites
- Synoicus ypsilophorus2 sites
- Tyto2 sites
- Aythya australis1 site
- Calidris1 site
- Cuculidae1 site
- Dendrocygna arcuata1 site
- Ducula1 site
- Falco1 site
- Fulica1 site
- Geopelia1 site
- Grus1 site
- Laridae1 site
- Macropygia1 site
- Motacillidae1 site
- Ninox1 site
- Passeriformes1 site
- Passerinae indet.1 site
- Ptilinopus1 site
- Rallidae1 site
- Synoicus chinensis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Turnix maculosus, 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- First record of avian extinctions from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of Timor Leste1
- First record of avian extinctions from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of Timor Leste1
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 content1
Picture of Turnix maculosus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Turnix maculosus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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 itTurnix through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Temminck 1815)