Afrocygnus fossil map
Where fossils of Afrocygnus have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 5 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 5 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
| Group | Prehistoric birds |
|---|---|
| Lived | 7.246–5.333 million years ago (Messinian) |
| Periods | Neogene |
| Family | Anatidae |
| Named by | Louchart 2005 |
| Fossil records | 2 occurrences at 1 locations (PBDB) |
| Found in | Chad |
| Rock formations | txn:39624 |
About Afrocygnus
Afrocygnus is an extinct genus of swan, which lived during the Late Miocene, and perhaps up to the Late Pliocene, in what is today North Africa. The only genus of swan known in Africa, aside from fragmentary Pleistocene remains found in East Africa and from occasional observations of vagrant European swans along the Mediterranean coast, it lived in what was during the Miocene a damp wetland spanning from Libya to Chad, alongside the Antracothere Libycosaurus and the early Homininae Sahelanthropus. The genus is considered as the sister taxon of the extant genus Cygnus. Fossils of the genus have been uncovered in the Sahabi Formation of Cyrenaica in Libya, and in the Toros-Menalla locality in the Djurab Desert of Northern Chad.
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Afrocygnus (revision 1322419525), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q21352857.
