Dermoptera

Colugos, flying lemurs, or cobegos, are arboreal gliding primatomorphs that are native to Southeast Asia. Their evolutionary closest relatives are primates. There are just two living species of colugos: the Sunda flying lemur and the Philippine flying lemur. These two species make up the entire family Cynocephalidae and order Dermoptera, from Ancient Greek δέρμα (dérma), meaning "skin", and πτερόν (pterón), meaning "wing".

Dermoptera

Lip Kee Yap . · 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
Also called
colugoPBDB
Sits inside
PrimatomorphaPBDB
Diet
folivorePBDB
Life habit
arborealPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 60 million years on record.

The record covers at least 60.9 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 63.4 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Paleocene — about 38 of 75 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 29 of 75 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 75 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 75 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 75 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 75 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–60 Mya — about 6 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 12 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 18 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 12 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 12 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 4 occurrences50–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences26–24 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences6.5–4.3 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences4.3–2.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.2–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences60.9 Mya774 ka65 Mya0 Mya

75 occurrences of Dermoptera on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

75 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

18 formations

Willwood — 44.78°N, 108.97°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.30°N, 109.00°WWillwood — 44.56°N, 108.70°WWillwood — 44.59°N, 108.62°WWillwood — 44.54°N, 108.65°WWillwood — 44.53°N, 108.43°WWillwood — 44.64°N, 108.76°WWillwood — 44.65°N, 108.77°WPaskapoo — 51.00°N, 114.10°WPaskapoo — 52.40°N, 113.80°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WPaskapoo — 52.20°N, 113.60°WPaskapoo — 51.50°N, 112.30°WPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.77°WPaskapoo — 54.80°N, 115.46°WPaskapoo — 53.23°N, 114.70°WPaskapoo — 51.05°N, 114.15°WFort Union — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.38°WFort Union — 45.40°N, 105.60°WFort Union — 43.45°N, 109.16°WFort Union — 41.92°N, 108.56°WFort Union — 45.20°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.30°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.62°WShungura — 5.09°N, 36.02°EPorcupine Hills — 51.10°N, 114.28°WPorcupine Hills — 51.03°N, 114.09°W"Fort Union" (= Lebo) — 45.80°N, 109.80°WRavenscrag — 49.70°N, 110.10°W"Fort Union No. 3" (= Melville) — 45.80°N, 109.80°WMelville — 45.80°N, 109.80°WLower Variegated Sequence — 43.90°N, 110.80°WMargaret — 78.50°N, 82.00°WClimbing Arrow — 46.00°N, 112.00°WWehaietu — 10.90°N, 40.48°ESagantole — 10.50°N, 40.58°EVarswater — 31.92°S, 21.52°EMaboko — 0.13°N, 34.61°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.33°EKrabi Basin B2 — 7.97°N, 99.06°E

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The named rock units Dermoptera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dermoptera and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Dermoptera and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

702 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 74 sites for Dermoptera, 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

35 references

Each of the 75 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. 23 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 Dermoptera

Credit
Lip Kee Yap .
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dermoptera 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 itPrimatomorpha through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Illinger 1811)