Amphiuma

Amphiuma is a genus of aquatic salamanders from the southeastern United States, the only extant genus within the family Amphiumidae. They are colloquially known as amphiumas. They are also known to fishermen as "conger eels" or "Congo snakes", which are zoologically incorrect designations or misnomers, since amphiumas are actually salamanders, and not eels (fish), nor reptiles and are not from Congo. Amphiuma exhibits one of the largest complements of DNA in the living world, around 25 times more than a human.

Amphiuma

Wagler, Johann · Public Domain · 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
amphiumaPBDB
Sits inside
AmphiumidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 57 million years on record.

The record covers at least 57.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 60.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Paleocene — about 1 of 11 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 11 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesPleistocene — about 6 of 11 occurrences62–60 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences10–8.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.3–6.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.2–4.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.1–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences57.5 Mya11.7 ka62 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Amphiuma 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

11 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

2 formations

Fleming — 30.70°N, 94.70°WFort Union — 44.91°N, 108.93°W

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The named rock units Amphiuma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Amphiuma and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Amphiuma and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

522 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Amphiuma, 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

10 references

Each of the 11 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 content2

Picture of Amphiuma

Credit
Wagler, Johann
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Amphiuma means · MVZ:Herp:MVZ:Herp:232794

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 itAmphiumidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Garden 1821