Bovinae
Bovines comprise a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large-sized ungulates, including cattle, bison, African buffalo, water buffalos, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The members of this group of bovids are classified into loose tribes rather than formal subgroups, as the evolutionary relationships within the groups are still uncertain. General characteristics include cloven hooves and usually at least one of the sexes of a species having true horns. The largest extant bovine is the gaur.

Benh LIEU SONG from Torcy, France · 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
- BovidaePBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Bovidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
1,773 occurrences of Bovinae 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
1,773 occurrences- Miocene12%
- Pliocene12%
- Pleistocene67%
- Holocene8%
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
145 formations
- Koobi Fora Formation · Omo Group172
- Shungura Formation · Omo Group115
- Nachukui Formation · Omo Group57
- Olduvai Formation · Vogel River Series Group36
- Vogel River Series Formation29
- Humbu Formation · Peninj Group16
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Bovinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 121 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 925 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Bovinae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Bovinae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,514 taxa- Equus84 sites
- Hipparion51 sites
- Alcelaphini46 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius44 sites
- Palaeoloxodon recki43 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus40 sites
- Gazella39 sites
- Tragelaphus strepsiceros34 sites
- Tragelaphus33 sites
- Ceratotherium simum32 sites
- Bovidae31 sites
- Clarias30 sites
- Reduncini29 sites
- Kobus28 sites
- Bos primigenius27 sites
- Bison26 sites
- Bos taurus25 sites
- Crocodylus24 sites
- Giraffa23 sites
- Bison latifrons22 sites
- Bovini22 sites
- Hippopotamus gorgops22 sites
- Syncerus caffer22 sites
- Hexaprotodon21 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 1,178 sites for Bovinae, and this reads 240 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
626 references- Family Bovidae158
- Large mammal fossil occurrences and associated archaeological evidence in Pleistocene contexts of peninsular India and Sri Lanka43
- Stratigraphy and Paleontology of pliocene and Pleistocene Localities West of Lake Turkana, Kenya43
- Laetoli: a Pliocene Site in Northern Tanzania29
- The Omo Group: Archives of the International Omo Research Expedition28
- The Omo Micromammals: Systematics and Paleoecology of Early Man Sites from Ethiopia27
- Lothagam: the dawn of humanity in eastern Africa26
- Paleoenvironmental and Cultural Implications of Late Holocene Archaeological Faunas from the Orange Free State and North Central Cape Province, South Africa24
- Kom Ombo: Preliminary Report on the Fauna of Late Paleolithic Sites in Upper Egypt24
- Extinct large Colobines from the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa20
- Mittelpleistozane Saugetierfaunen aus Mitteleuropa - der Versuch einer biostratigraphischen Zuordnung15
- From tortoises to elephants: the impact of elephants in the broad spectrum diet at Bolomor Cave (MIS 9–5 Spain)14
Each of the 1,773 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. 614 further references are not listed. 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 Bovinae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Benh LIEU SONG from Torcy, France
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bovinae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Bovinae”
- 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 itBovidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1821