Galerella pulverulenta
The Cape grey mongoose, also called the small grey mongoose, is a small mammal native to South Africa, Lesotho and southern Namibia.

Martin Kraft · 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
- Cape grey mongoosePBDB
- Sits inside
- GalerellaPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Herpestidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Herpestidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
15 occurrences of Galerella pulverulenta 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
15 occurrences- Pleistocene86%
- Holocene14%
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.
Galerella pulverulenta and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Galerella pulverulenta and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
147 taxa- Hystrix africaeaustralis13 sites
- Procavia capensis13 sites
- Lupulella mesomelas12 sites
- Taurotragus oryx12 sites
- Arctocephalus pusillus11 sites
- Felis lybica11 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius11 sites
- Loxodonta africana11 sites
- Mellivora capensis11 sites
- Papio ursinus11 sites
- Syncerus caffer11 sites
- Homo sapiens10 sites
- Oreotragus oreotragus10 sites
- Pelea capreolus10 sites
- Redunca fulvorufula10 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus9 sites
- Lepus capensis9 sites
- Panthera pardus9 sites
- Raphicerus melanotis9 sites
- Redunca arundinum9 sites
- Bathyergus suillus8 sites
- Bovidae8 sites
- Caracal caracal8 sites
- Delphinidae8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Galerella pulverulenta, 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
14 references- The late quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change2
- The Middle and Later Stone Age faunal remains from Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa1
- Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels1
- Middle and later Stone Age large mammal and tortoise remains from Die Kelders Cave 1, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
- Late Pleisticene Humans Remains from the Sea Harvest Site, Saldanha Bay, South Africa1
- Dating, Archaeology and Human Fossils from the Middle Stone Age Levels of Die Kelders, South Africa1
- Faunal Evidence for Prehistoric Herder-Forager Activites at Kasteelberg, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
- The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa1
- Later Stone Age Subsistence at Byeneskranskop, South Africa1
- A Preliinary Report on the Larger Mammals from the Boomplaas Stone age Cave Site, Cango Valley, Oudtshoorn District, South Africa1
- Excavations in the Buffelskoof Rock Shelter near Calitzdorp, Southern Cape1
- The Mammalian Fauna from the Middle and Later Stone Age (Later Pleistocene) Levels of Border Cave, Natal Province, South Africa1
Each of the 15 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. 2 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 Galerella pulverulenta
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Martin Kraft
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Galerella pulverulenta 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 itGalerella through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Wagner 1839)