Atelerix
Atelerix is a genus of hedgehog in the family Erinaceidae. It contains four species, all native to Africa.

Uncredited · 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
- ErinaceinaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Erinaceidae
- Life habit
- semifossorialPBDB, for Erinaceidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
4 occurrences of Atelerix on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
4 occurrences- Miocene50%
- Pleistocene50%
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.
Atelerix and its relatives
MioceneWhere Atelerix and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
78 taxa- Antidorcas marsupialis2 sites
- Bovidae2 sites
- Connochaetes gnou2 sites
- Damaliscus dorcas2 sites
- Diceros bicornis2 sites
- Felis lybica2 sites
- Genetta2 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius2 sites
- Homo sapiens2 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis2 sites
- Lupulella mesomelas2 sites
- Mellivora capensis2 sites
- Ovis aries2 sites
- Papio ursinus2 sites
- Parahyaena brunnea2 sites
- Pelea capreolus2 sites
- Procavia capensis2 sites
- Redunca fulvorufula2 sites
- Syncerus caffer2 sites
- Acinonyx jubatus1 site
- Alcelaphus buselaphus1 site
- Amphiperatherium frequens erkertshofense1 site
- Archaeodesmana vinea1 site
- Arctocephalus pusillus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Atelerix, 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
4 references- Early Miocene marsupialiforms, gymnures, and hedgehogs from Ribesalbes-Alcora Basin (Spain)1
- Insectivores (Lipotyphla) and bats (Chiroptera) from the Late Miocene of Austria1
- Dating, Archaeology and Human Fossils from the Middle Stone Age Levels of Die Kelders, South Africa1
- Environmental, Ecological and Paleoanthropological Implications of the Late Pleistocene Mammalian Fauna from Equus Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa1
Each of the 4 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 Atelerix
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Atelerix”
- 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 itErinaceinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pomel 1848