Glirulus japonicus

The Japanese dormouse is a species of rodent in the family Gliridae endemic to Japan. It is the only extant species within the genus Glirulus. Its natural habitat is temperate forests. In Japanese, it is called yamane. Among dormice, it has the special ability of running at great speed upside down, suspended from branches. Its main food is fruit, insects, berries, nuts, and even flowers. It tends to inhabit arboreal nesting sites to avoid interspecific competition with the small Japanese field mouse because of their sympatric relationship.

Glirulus japonicus

Yamaneseisokubunpuiki · 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
Sits inside
GlirulusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Glirulus japonicus 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

1 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.

Glirulus japonicus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Glirulus japonicus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

30 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Glirulus japonicus, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Glirulus japonicus

Credit
Yamaneseisokubunpuiki
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Glirulus japonicus · ummz:mammals:102504

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

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 itGlirulus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schinz 1845