Cercocarpus

Cercocarpus, commonly known as mountain mahogany, is a small genus of at least nine species of nitrogen-fixing flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native to the western United States and northern Mexico, where they grow in chaparral and semidesert habitats and climates, often at high altitudes. Several are found in the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion.

Cercocarpus

Stan Shebs · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
RosaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 21 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 12.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Eocene — about 5 of 33 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 33 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 23 of 33 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 33 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–30 Mya — about 1 occurrence30–28 Mya — about 1 occurrence28–27 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 2 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 3 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 7 occurrences12–10 Mya — about 3 occurrences10–8.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence8.9–7.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.4–6.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.0–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33.9 Mya12.5 Mya48.9 Mya4.5 Mya

33 occurrences of Cercocarpus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

33 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

9 formations

Chloropagus — 39.58°N, 119.37°WChloropagus — 39.58°N, 119.35°WChloropagus — 39.79°N, 118.94°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.25°WMiddlegate — 39.25°N, 117.88°WBopesta — 35.30°N, 118.50°WBuffalo Canyon — 39.20°N, 117.78°WPyramid — 39.90°N, 119.55°WAldrich Station — 38.49°N, 118.90°WDesert Peak — 39.39°N, 118.97°WGuchengzi — 41.84°N, 123.90°E

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The named rock units Cercocarpus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cercocarpus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cercocarpus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

340 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Cercocarpus, 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

9 references

Each of the 33 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 Cercocarpus

Credit
Stan Shebs
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cercocarpus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itRosaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Humboldt et al. 1823