Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
NarrativeWikipediaarticle
Traits & measurements3 literature sources29 traits
Occurrence & distributionGBIF · OBIS · PBDB19 216 records
Deep timePBDB3 fossils
01Narrative
Scripps's murrelet (Synthliboramphus scrippsi) is a small seabird found in the California Current system in the Pacific Ocean. This auk breeds on islands off California and Mexico. It is threatened by predators introduced to its breeding colonies and by oil spills. This species and the Guadalupe murrelet were considered conspecific and were known collectively as Xantus's murrelet until 2012. The two species are now considered distinct based on a lack of evidence of interbreeding at a shared nesting colony on the San Benito Islands, differences in facial pattern and bill shape, and differences in vocalizations and genetics.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
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 finds3
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 Synthliboramphus scrippsi. 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 accuracy7% within 1 km
≤100 m 22≤1 km 7≤10 km 18>10 km 347
394 georeferenced · 18 445 without coordinates
Open the mapobservation + sensor18 839
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 accuracy88% within 1 km
≤100 m 221≤1 km 2≤10 km 29
252 georeferenced · 122 without coordinates
Open the institutions mapphysical evidence374
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 institutions21 of 25 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
Institution
Specimens
San Diego, US
130
Washington, US
50
Chongqing Museumlocation not on record
41
Berkeley, US
33
University of California Los Angeleslocation not on record
19
Chicago, US
18
Ann Arbor, US
13
Zacatecas, MX
9
New Haven, US
9
US
9
Seattle, US
8
8
Cambridge, US
4
Denver, US
4
Los Angeles, US
4
Philadelphia, US
2
Wuzhou, CN
2
Delaware Museum of Nature and Sciencelocation not on record
2
Toronto, CA
2
Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Occidental Collegelocation not on record
2
Ciudad de México, MX
1
Vancouver, CA
1
Mexico City, MX
1
München, DE
1
St. Paul, US
1
25 institutions · 374 of 374 vouchered records shown
