How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
Fossil range2.58–0.01 Ma Pleistocene
Dated fossil finds2
StatusStill living record runs to the present
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Oceanodroma melania. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph.
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Coordinate accuracy100% within 1 km
≤100 m 1 025
1 025 georeferenced · 1 082 without coordinates
Open the mapobservation + sensor2 107
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Coordinate accuracy77% within 1 km
≤100 m 468≤1 km 36≤10 km 76>10 km 73
653 georeferenced · 374 without coordinates
Open the institutions mapphysical evidence1 027
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
10Collections & institutions
Holding institutions25 of 36 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
Institution
Specimens
CASlocation not on record
172
San Diego, US
158
Chongqing Museumlocation not on record
146
US
118
Los Angeles, US
107
Washington, US
103
39
University of California Los Angeleslocation not on record
28
Toronto, CA
25
Cambridge, US
23
Chicago, US
16
Denver, US
11
South Kensington, GB
11
Zacatecas, MX
10
Delaware Museum of Nature and Sciencelocation not on record
7
Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record
6
Wuzhou, CN
5
Mexico City, MX
4
Seattle, US
4
Philadelphia, US
3
Vancouver, CA
3
Albany, US
3
ASUlocation not on record
2
Geneva, CH
2
Ciudad de México, MX
2
Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Occidental Collegelocation not on record
2
Auckland, NZ
1
Mongolian Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record
1
Brussels, BE
1
RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record
1
Iowa City, US
1
Santa Cruz, US
1
Ohio State University - Bird Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record
1
New Haven, US
1
St. Paul, US
1
Universidad del Valle (UniValle)location not on record
1
36 institutions · 1 020 of 1 027 vouchered records shown · 6 without an institution code
