Adansonia digitata

Adansonia digitata, the African baobab, is the most widespread tree species of the genus Adansonia, the baobabs, and is native to the African continent and the southern Arabian Peninsula. These are long-lived pachycauls; radiocarbon dating has shown at least one individual to be 1,275 years old. They are typically found in dry, hot savannas of sub-Saharan Africa, where they dominate the landscape and reveal the presence of a watercourse from afar. They have traditionally been valued as sources of food, water, health remedies or places of shelter and are a key food source for many animals. They are steeped in legend and superstition. In recent years, many of the largest, oldest trees have died, for unknown reasons. Other common names for the baobab include monkey-bread tree, upside-down tree, and cream of tartar tree.

A picture published with the record for Adansonia digitata. What it shows has not been checked.

Ferdinand Reus from Arnhem, Holland · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
AdansoniaPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 1.1 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 1.8 Mya and 774 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistocene1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–949 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences949 ka–882 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences882 ka–814 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences814 ka–747 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.3 Mya274 ka

1 occurrence of Adansonia digitata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

1 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

1 formation

Olduvai — 2.99°S, 35.33°E

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The named rock units Adansonia digitata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Adansonia digitata and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Adansonia digitata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

34 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Adansonia digitata, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Adansonia digitata

Credit
Ferdinand Reus from Arnhem, Holland
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Adansonia digitata 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 itAdansonia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753