Acanthaceae

Acanthaceae is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2500 species. Most are tropical herbs, shrubs, or twining vines; some are epiphytes. Only a few species are distributed in temperate regions. The four main centres of distribution are Indonesia and Malaysia, Africa, Brazil, and Central America. Representatives of the family can be found in nearly every habitat, including dense or open forests, scrublands, wet fields and valleys, sea coast and marine areas, swamps, and mangrove forests.

Acanthaceae

Dcrjsr · CC BY 3.0 · 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
acanthusPBDB
Sits inside
LamialesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 75 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 75 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 2 of 75 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 75 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 75 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 75 occurrencesPleistocene — about 56 of 75 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences31–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences6.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences4.5–2.2 Mya — about 8 occurrences2.2–0 Mya — about 62 occurrences33.9 Mya11.7 ka67 Mya0 Mya

75 occurrences of Acanthaceae 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

75 occurrences

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.

Found in

4 formations

Olduvai — 2.96°S, 35.31°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.01°N, 79.19°ENgorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°EHeadon Beds — 50.75°N, 1.60°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Acanthaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 64 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Acanthaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Acanthaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

781 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 39 sites for Acanthaceae, 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

Each of the 75 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 content1

Picture of Acanthaceae

Credit
Dcrjsr
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Acanthaceae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itLamiales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Jussieu 1789