Athrotaxis

Athrotaxis is a genus of two to three species of conifers in the cypress family, Cupressaceae. The genus is endemic to western Tasmania, where they grow in high-elevation temperate rainforests. They are also considered alpine plants.

Athrotaxis

Mike Bayly · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
AthrotaxidoideaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 103 million years on record.

The record covers at least 106.3 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 129 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 4 of 39 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 39 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 39 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 2 of 39 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 26 of 39 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 39 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 39 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 39 occurrences115–112 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences112–108 Mya — about 1 occurrence108–104 Mya — about 1 occurrence104–100 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences46–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–38 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences38–35 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences35–31 Mya — about 8 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 10 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 8 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences3.8–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences106.3 Mya2.58 Mya115 Mya0 Mya

39 occurrences of Athrotaxis on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

39 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

Patapsco — 37.30°N, 77.29°WPatapsco — 37.26°N, 77.37°WKachaike — 48.85°S, 72.15°WKachaike — 48.85°S, 72.15°W

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The named rock units Athrotaxis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 35 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Athrotaxis and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Athrotaxis and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

240 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Athrotaxis, 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

8 references

Each of the 39 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 Athrotaxis

Credit
Mike Bayly
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Athrotaxis 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 itAthrotaxidoideae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Don 1839