Vini
Vini is a genus of birds in the family Psittaculidae that are endemic to the islands of the tropical Pacific. There are eleven extant species of these small lorikeets ranging from the Bismark Archipelago through Fiji, Samoa, French Polynesia, and as far east as Henderson Island. All members of the genus have exceptional bright plumage, particularly the unusual all over blues of the blue lorikeet and the ultramarine lorikeet.

Charles J. Sharp · 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- Sits inside
- PsittaculidaePBDB
- 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 most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
55 occurrences of Vini on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
55 occurrences- Pleistocene3%
- Holocene97%
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.
Vini and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Vini and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
139 taxa- Gygis alba10 sites
- Ducula galeata8 sites
- Gallus gallus8 sites
- Fregata minor7 sites
- Puffinus nativitatis7 sites
- Zapornia tabuensis7 sites
- Alopecoenas erythropterus6 sites
- Pterodroma6 sites
- Acrocephalus taiti5 sites
- Anous5 sites
- Ducula harrisoni5 sites
- Gallicolumba leonpascoi5 sites
- Gallirallus ripleyi5 sites
- Nesofregetta fuliginosa5 sites
- Numenius tahitiensis5 sites
- Phaethon lepturus5 sites
- Phaethon rubricauda5 sites
- Ptilinopus insularis5 sites
- Zapornia atra5 sites
- Bountyphaps obsoleta4 sites
- Didunculus placopedetes4 sites
- Eclectus infectus4 sites
- Megapodius4 sites
- Porphyrio paepae4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Vini, 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
9 references- Two new species of parrots (Aves: Psittacidae) from archeological sites in the Marquesas Islands24
- Prehistoric extinction of birds on Mangaia, Cook Islands, Polynesia11
- Extinction of birds in eastern Polynesia: A review of the record, and comparison with other Pacific island groups6
- The fossil birds of Henderson Island, Pitcairn Group: natural turnover and human impact, a synopsis5
- Biogeography of Tongan birds before and after human impact3
- Extinction and biogeography of birds on Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia2
- Extinct and extirpated birds from Aitutaki and Atiu, southern Cook Islands2
- Prehistoric avifaunas from the Kingdom of Tonga1
- The prehistory and biogeography of terrestrial vertebrates on Guam, Mariana Islands1
Each of the 55 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 Vini
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- 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
- Vini australis · KU:KUO:119032
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, “Vini (bird)”
- 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 itPsittaculidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lesson 1833