Erycinae

The Erycinae, also known as the Old World sand boas, are a subfamily of nonvenomous snakes in the family Boidae. Species of the subfamily Erycinae are found in Europe, Asia Minor, Africa, Arabia, central and southwestern Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and western North America. Four genera comprising 18 species are currently recognized as being valid.

Erycinae

Guy Haimovitch · 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
sand boaPBDB
Sits inside
BoidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
fossorial, solitaryPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 129 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 129 occurrencesEocene — about 16 of 129 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 17 of 129 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 75 of 129 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 11 of 129 occurrencesPleistocene — about 9 of 129 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences47–44 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 4 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 5 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 3 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 1 occurrence27–25 Mya — about 6 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 8 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 8 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 14 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 13 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 10 occurrences12–9.8 Mya — about 10 occurrences9.8–7.4 Mya — about 10 occurrences7.4–4.9 Mya — about 9 occurrences4.9–2.5 Mya — about 10 occurrences2.5–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences66 Mya129 ka74 Mya0 Mya

129 occurrences of Erycinae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

129 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

43 formations

Tudela — 42.06°N, 1.55°WTudela — 42.07°N, 1.61°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WValentine — 42.81°N, 100.05°WValentine — 40.02°N, 98.53°WAsh Hollow — 41.30°N, 101.89°WAsh Hollow — 42.63°N, 100.05°WArikaree — 43.20°N, 108.20°WArikaree — 43.20°N, 107.10°WSplit Rock — 43.00°N, 108.00°WFort Randall — 43.10°N, 98.30°WFort Randall — 43.53°N, 99.13°WPerrière — 44.37°N, 1.73°EPerrière — 44.38°N, 1.43°EHarrison — 42.80°N, 100.80°WHarrison — 42.40°N, 103.80°WSarmiento — 43.28°S, 65.48°WLoh — 45.38°N, 101.51°ERosebud — 43.20°N, 101.80°WBrule — 42.88°N, 103.58°WBrule — 40.93°N, 103.32°WCalvert — 39.20°N, 75.60°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFleming — 31.00°N, 93.40°WTwiggs — 32.70°N, 83.63°WRunningwater — 42.37°N, 103.32°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WRingold — 47.00°N, 118.50°WHeadon Hill — 50.72°N, 1.22°WAgha Jari — 34.48°N, 44.63°EPerriere — 44.35°N, 1.73°ECalcaire de Saint-Ouen — 49.13°N, 3.35°EKuldana — 33.62°N, 71.92°E

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The named rock units Erycinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 61 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Erycinae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Erycinae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,172 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 111 sites for Erycinae, 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

84 references

Each of the 129 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. 72 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 Erycinae

Credit
Guy Haimovitch
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 itBoidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bonaparte 1825)