Cryosophila sp.
Cryosophila is a genus of medium-sized fan palms that range from central Mexico to northern Colombia. Species in the genus can be readily distinguished from related genera by their distinctive downward-pointing spines on the stem, which are actually modified roots. They are known as the "root spine palms".

User:Carstor · 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.
Time the record covers
At most 7.1 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.04 Mya and 15.98 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
11 occurrences of Cryosophila sp. on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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- Miocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Cryosophila sp. has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Cryosophila sp. and its relatives
MioceneWhere Cryosophila sp. and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
35 taxa- <Fern>11 sites
- Malvaceae11 sites
- Plantae11 sites
- Rhizophora11 sites
- Selaginella11 sites
- Manicaria10 sites
- Synechanthus sp.10 sites
- Cyathea9 sites
- cf. Antrophyum sp.6 sites
- Ilex5 sites
- Lycopodium5 sites
- Tetrorchidium sp.4 sites
- Allophylus3 sites
- Combretaceae3 sites
- Lygodium3 sites
- Malpighiaceae3 sites
- Poaceae3 sites
- Rourea3 sites
- Acacia2 sites
- Alchornea2 sites
- cf. Doliocarpus sp.2 sites
- Cupania2 sites
- Danaea2 sites
- Desmoncus sp.2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Cryosophila sp., 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
1 referenceEach 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Cryosophila sp.
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- User:Carstor
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Cryosophila warscewiczii · k:Wood2523
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cryosophila”
- 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 itFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.