Dicksonia

Dicksonia is a genus of tree ferns in the order Cyatheales. It is regarded as related to Cyathea, but is considered to retain more primitive traits, dating back at least to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The fossil record includes stems, pinnules, and spores.

Dicksonia

Uncredited · GFDL 1.2 · 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
DicksoniaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 251 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.902 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 266.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Permian — about 2 of 56 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 56 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 8 of 56 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 6 of 56 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 56 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 56 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 56 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 56 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 56 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 56 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 56 occurrencesPleistocene — about 30 of 56 occurrences272–263 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences263–254 Mya — about 1 occurrence254–245 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences191–181 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences181–172 Mya — about 3 occurrences172–163 Mya — about 6 occurrences163–154 Mya — about 3 occurrences154–145 Mya — about 3 occurrences145–136 Mya — about 2 occurrences109–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–91 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences91–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–73 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences73–64 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences64–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences27–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–9.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences9.1–0 Mya — about 31 occurrences251.902 Mya11.7 ka272 Mya0 Mya

56 occurrences of Dicksonia 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

56 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

16 formations

Lower Saltwick — 54.30°N, 0.40°WCloughton — 54.30°N, 0.40°WCloughton — 54.17°N, 0.25°WRajmahal — 25.23°N, 87.49°ETuscaloosa — 33.61°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.12°N, 87.67°WRosario — 17.80°N, 98.20°WCoon Hollow — 45.60°N, 116.50°WBijou — 22.50°N, 78.00°EChechuma Suite — 64.20°N, 126.40°ETalyndzhan Suite — 51.60°N, 133.30°ETyrma Suite — 50.00°N, 132.10°ELower Urgal Suite (Dublikan Suite) — 51.10°N, 132.80°EKamenka Suite — 49.10°N, 37.30°ESaltwick — 54.37°N, 1.25°WHuitrera — 42.50°S, 70.00°WHalf Three Point — 62.15°S, 58.73°WJabalpur — 23.18°N, 79.95°E

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The named rock units Dicksonia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 36 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dicksonia and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Dicksonia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

794 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 51 sites for Dicksonia, 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

18 references

Each of the 56 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. 6 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 Dicksonia

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dicksonia 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 itDicksoniaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. L'Héritier de Brutelle 1788