Cycadales

Cycads —constituting the division Cycadophyta—are seed plants with a stout, woody cylindrical trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and usually pinnate (feather-shaped) leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male or female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow slowly and have long lifespans. They superficially resemble palms or ferns, but are not closely related to either group. Cycads are gymnosperms. Cycads have specialized pollinators, usually a specific beetle, and more rarely a thrips or a moth.

Cycadales

Uncredited · 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
CycadopsidaPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 304 million years on record.

The record covers at least 304.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Cambrian — about 0 of 2722 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 2722 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 2722 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 2722 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 14 of 2722 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 339 of 2722 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 25 of 2722 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 72 of 2722 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 502 of 2722 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 352 of 2722 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 682 of 2722 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 341 of 2722 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 205 of 2722 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 122 of 2722 occurrencesPaleocene — about 12 of 2722 occurrencesEocene — about 41 of 2722 occurrencesOligocene — about 7 of 2722 occurrencesMiocene — about 5 of 2722 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 2722 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 2722 occurrences550–531 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences531–513 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences513–495 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences495–476 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences476–458 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences458–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–403 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences403–385 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences385–366 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences366–348 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences348–330 Mya — about 1 occurrence330–311 Mya — about 2 occurrences311–293 Mya — about 35 occurrences293–275 Mya — about 128 occurrences275–256 Mya — about 145 occurrences256–238 Mya — about 127 occurrences238–220 Mya — about 255 occurrences220–202 Mya — about 256 occurrences202–183 Mya — about 239 occurrences183–165 Mya — about 710 occurrences165–147 Mya — about 357 occurrences147–128 Mya — about 115 occurrences128–110 Mya — about 105 occurrences110–92 Mya — about 118 occurrences92–73 Mya — about 21 occurrences73–55 Mya — about 54 occurrences55–37 Mya — about 33 occurrences37–18 Mya — about 14 occurrences18–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences304.8 Mya11.7 ka550 Mya0 Mya

2,722 occurrences of Cycadales on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

2,722 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

535 formations

Saltwick — 54.40°N, 1.00°WSaltwick — 54.50°N, 0.75°WSaltwick — 54.30°N, 0.40°WSaltwick — 54.50°N, 1.00°WSaltwick — 54.37°N, 1.25°WSaltwick — 54.33°N, 0.50°WMolteno — 29.50°S, 29.50°EMolteno — 30.50°S, 29.00°EMolteno — 28.57°S, 29.05°EMolteno — 31.10°S, 26.50°EMolteno — 31.50°S, 28.00°EMolteno — 30.80°S, 26.88°EMolteno — 30.53°S, 26.90°EMolteno — 30.00°S, 27.00°EMolteno — 31.47°S, 26.43°EMolteno — 30.90°S, 26.72°EMolteno — 31.50°S, 27.92°EMolteno — 31.48°S, 26.47°EMolteno — 31.47°S, 26.83°EMolteno — 31.57°S, 26.22°EMolteno — 31.17°S, 28.43°EMolteno — 30.68°S, 28.52°EMolteno — 31.05°S, 26.80°EMolteno — 31.57°S, 26.27°EMolteno — 30.68°S, 26.95°ERajmahal — 25.03°N, 87.59°ERajmahal — 25.08°N, 87.74°ERajmahal — 24.52°N, 87.57°ERajmahal — 25.14°N, 87.50°ERajmahal — 25.24°N, 87.71°ERajmahal — 25.21°N, 87.50°ERajmahal — 24.65°N, 87.79°ERajmahal — 20.52°N, 85.63°EShanxi — 34.30°N, 116.90°EShanxi — 37.80°N, 112.20°EShanxi — 39.60°N, 111.00°EShanxi — 38.00°N, 114.00°EShanxi — 41.80°N, 126.50°EShanxi — 35.20°N, 109.90°EShanxi — 34.20°N, 113.50°EShanxi — 34.20°N, 117.20°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 105.60°EShanxi — 41.20°N, 123.80°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 99.60°EShanxi — 38.50°N, 102.20°EShanxi — 35.70°N, 106.60°EShanxi — 38.20°N, 106.40°EShanxi — 36.80°N, 118.10°EShanxi — 39.40°N, 111.00°EShanxi — 35.10°N, 117.20°ESanta Clara — 28.57°N, 110.21°WSanta Clara — 28.51°N, 110.19°WSanta Clara — 28.56°N, 109.34°WSanta Clara — 28.57°N, 109.75°WSanta Clara — 28.55°N, 109.35°WSanta Clara — 28.57°N, 109.21°WSanta Clara — 28.56°N, 110.13°WSanta Clara — 28.58°N, 109.63°WSteierdorf — 45.08°N, 21.85°EBhuj — 23.28°N, 69.36°EBhuj — 23.68°N, 68.87°EBhuj — 23.48°N, 69.27°EBhuj — 23.32°N, 69.77°EBhuj — 23.18°N, 69.38°EBhuj — 23.31°N, 69.32°EBhuj — 23.20°N, 69.56°EBhuj — 23.43°N, 69.13°EBhuj — 23.21°N, 70.08°ELower Dzhizhikrut Suite — 39.20°N, 68.50°ECloughton — 54.30°N, 0.40°WCloughton — 54.17°N, 0.25°WWenbinshan — 25.50°N, 117.60°EDzharsu Suite — 44.20°N, 52.50°EDzharsu Suite — 44.40°N, 51.30°EDzharsu Suite — 43.10°N, 54.90°EDzharsu Suite — 43.60°N, 53.60°EDzharsu Suite — 44.20°N, 51.90°EUpper Gurud Suite — 38.60°N, 67.40°EKaradiirmen' Suite — 44.40°N, 51.30°EKaradiirmen' Suite — 44.10°N, 52.20°EKaradiirmen' Suite — 43.10°N, 54.90°EKaradiirmen' Suite — 43.60°N, 53.60°EAlmond — 41.77°N, 109.20°WLower Saltwick — 54.30°N, 0.40°WKrivorechenskaya — 64.48°N, 168.92°ELower Gring Suite — 38.20°N, 70.30°ELower Gring Suite — 38.50°N, 70.20°EHell Creek — 46.35°N, 103.87°WHell Creek — 46.15°N, 103.82°WHell Creek — 46.14°N, 103.86°WHell Creek — 46.02°N, 103.76°WKamenka Suite — 49.10°N, 37.30°EAgua Doce — 3.69°S, 44.56°WLinshan — 28.40°N, 117.50°ELinshan — 27.30°N, 115.10°ELinshan — 28.40°N, 118.30°ELinshan — 27.90°N, 114.90°ELinshan — 27.00°N, 114.20°EUpper Tashkutan Suite — 38.50°N, 67.90°EUpper Tashkutan Suite — 38.60°N, 67.40°EUpper Tashkutan Suite — 38.70°N, 69.30°ECape Stewart — 70.50°N, 22.60°WPautut — 70.25°N, 54.50°W

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The named rock units Cycadales has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 511 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 864 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cycadales and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Cycadales and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

1,014 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 898 sites for Cycadales, 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

439 references

Each of the 2,722 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. 427 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 Cycadales

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cycadales 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 itCycadopsida through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dumortier 1829