Dioscorea

Dioscorea is a genus of over 600 species of flowering plants in the family Dioscoreaceae, native throughout the tropical and warm temperate regions of the world. The vast majority of the species are tropical, with only a few species extending into temperate climates. It was named by the monk Charles Plumier after the ancient Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides.

Dioscorea

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
Also called
yamPBDB
Sits inside
DioscoreaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 30 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 4 of 7 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–11 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.1–7.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.9–6.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.7–5.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.1–1.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences33.9 Mya3.6 Mya37.7 Mya1.9 Mya

7 occurrences of Dioscorea 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

7 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

2 formations

Ngorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°EMangbang — 24.69°N, 98.63°E

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The named rock units Dioscorea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dioscorea and its relatives

Miocene

Where Dioscorea and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

212 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Dioscorea, 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

7 references

Each of the 7 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 Dioscorea

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itDioscoreaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753