Herpestes sanguineus

Rüppell, Eduard · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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
- slender mongoosePBDB
- Sits inside
- HerpestesPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Herpestidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Herpestes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.
9 occurrences of Herpestes sanguineus on record. 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
9 occurrences- Miocene11%
- Pleistocene33%
- Holocene56%
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
- Swartkrans Formation · Transvaal Group1
- Nubia Formation1
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The named rock units Herpestes sanguineus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
271 taxa- Tragelaphus strepsiceros7 sites
- Panthera pardus5 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus5 sites
- Aepyceros melampus4 sites
- Equus quagga burchelli4 sites
- Hippotragus equinus4 sites
- Lepus4 sites
- Mellivora capensis4 sites
- Ourebia ourebi4 sites
- Panthera leo4 sites
- Sylvicapra grimmia4 sites
- Taurotragus oryx4 sites
- Varanus4 sites
- Bovidae3 sites
- Chlorocebus aethiops3 sites
- Crocuta crocuta3 sites
- Giraffa camelopardalis3 sites
- Hystrix3 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis3 sites
- Kobus ellipsiprymnus3 sites
- Mammalia3 sites
- Oreotragus oreotragus3 sites
- Parahyaena brunnea3 sites
- Phacochoerus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Herpestes sanguineus, 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
8 references- The Prehistory of Eastern Zambia2
- The earliest modern mongoose (Carnivora, Herpestidae) from Africa (late Miocene of Chad)1
- The Late Prehistory of the Eastern Sahel1
- Provenience, Age and Associations of Archaic Homo Sapiens Crania fron Lake Eyasi, Tanzania1
- Later Stone Age Faunal Samples from Heuningneskrans Shelter (Transvaal) and Leopard's Hill Cave (Zambia)1
- A revision of the faunal remains from two central Sudanese sites: Khartoum Hospital and Esh Shaheinab1
- Structure of Nylsrley Savanna1
- Re-interpretation of the Swartkrans site and its remains1
Each of the 9 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 content2

Picture of Herpestes sanguineus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Rüppell, Eduard
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Laser scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- LACM Mammalogy
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Herpestes sanguineus · lacm:mammals:59639
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHerpestes through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Rüppell 1835)