Elaphurus
Elaphurus is a genus of deer. E. davidianus is the only extant species and several fossil species are described.

Tim Felce (Airwolfhound) · 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
- Pere David's deerPBDB
- Sits inside
- CerviniPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Cervidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Cervidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 2.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
10 occurrences of Elaphurus 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
10 occurrences- Pliocene19%
- Pleistocene81%
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
3 formations
- Komiya Formation · Kazusa Group3
- Kairubak suite Formation1
- Kuruksai suite Formation1
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The named rock units Elaphurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Elaphurus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Elaphurus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
110 taxa- Cervus4 sites
- Allactaga2 sites
- Allohippus stenonis2 sites
- Bison palaeosinensis2 sites
- Canis chihliensis2 sites
- Dicerorhinus2 sites
- Elasmotherium2 sites
- Equus2 sites
- Equus sanmeniensis2 sites
- Eucladoceros boulei2 sites
- Gazella2 sites
- Gazella sinensis2 sites
- Nyctereutes2 sites
- Ochotona2 sites
- Ovis2 sites
- Ovis shantungensis2 sites
- Paracamelus2 sites
- Paracamelus gigas2 sites
- Promimomys2 sites
- Sinomegaceros2 sites
- Spirocerus wongi2 sites
- Sus lydekkeri2 sites
- Ursus etruscus2 sites
- Vulpes2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Elaphurus, 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- The Plio-Pleistocene fossil mammals from the Kasumi and Tama Hills3
- Upper Cenozoic bio-magnetic stratigraphy of Central Asian mammalian localities2
- New carnivoran remains from the Early Pleistocene Shanshenmiaozui site in Nihewan Basin, northern China1
- Occurrence of fossil balaenids in Taiwan and its implications for climate change1
- The first fossil record of a short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) from the Penghu Channel1
- Fossil Cervidae from the Tou-kou-shan Group in Taiwan1
- Les mammifères fossiles de Nihowan (Chine)1
Each of the 10 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 Elaphurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Tim Felce (Airwolfhound)
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Elaphurus 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Elaphurus”
- 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 itCervini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Milne-Edwards 1866)