Lygodium

Lygodium is a genus of about 40 species of ferns, native to tropical regions across the world, with a few temperate species in eastern Asia and eastern North America. It is the sole genus in the family Lygodiaceae in the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016. Alternatively, the genus may be placed as the only genus in the subfamily Lygodioideae of a more broadly defined family Schizaeaceae, the family placement used in Plants of the World Online as of November 2019. Per recent molecular evidence, Lygodiaceae is thought to have diverged relatively early from the other members of the Schizaeales due to the relatively high level of synonymous sequence divergence between the families within the Schizaeales.

Lygodium

Marshman at English Wikipedia / Eric Guinther · 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
climbing fernPBDB
Sits inside
LygodiaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 127 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 127 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 9 of 127 occurrencesEocene — about 72 of 127 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 5 of 127 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 5 of 127 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 127 occurrencesPleistocene — about 23 of 127 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 4 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–60 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–56 Mya — about 11 occurrences56–51 Mya — about 45 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 7 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 6 occurrences43–38 Mya — about 6 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 3 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 3 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 2 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 1 occurrence21–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–8.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences8.6–4.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.3–0 Mya — about 25 occurrences121.4 Mya11.7 ka128 Mya0 Mya

127 occurrences of Lygodium on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

127 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

23 formations

Willwood — 44.00°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.16°N, 108.55°WWillwood — 44.17°N, 108.48°WWillwood — 44.28°N, 108.05°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 107.00°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.33°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 109.00°WWasatch — 41.72°N, 107.80°WWasatch — 41.69°N, 107.88°WWasatch — 41.69°N, 108.20°WWasatch — 41.83°N, 108.38°WWasatch — 41.87°N, 108.00°WWasatch — 41.83°N, 108.04°WWasatch — 41.92°N, 108.17°WWasatch — 42.33°N, 108.22°WWoolwich — 51.38°N, 0.10°WWoolwich — 51.45°N, 0.02°WWoolwich — 51.47°N, 0.20°EWoolwich — 51.35°N, 0.07°EGreen River — 39.00°N, 110.00°WGreen River — 39.46°N, 108.41°WGolden Valley — 45.50°N, 103.25°WGolden Valley — 47.17°N, 102.83°WGolden Valley — 47.08°N, 102.83°WTatman — 44.19°N, 108.58°WTatman — 44.15°N, 108.55°WTatman — 44.00°N, 109.00°WSepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WSepulcher — 40.00°N, 110.00°WAlmond — 41.77°N, 109.20°WCulebra — 9.03°N, 79.63°WHelvetiafjellet — 78.10°N, 13.93°EBagshot — 50.63°N, 1.93°WBagshot — 50.72°N, 2.00°WEifel — 50.10°N, 6.84°EDawson Arkose — 39.22°N, 104.22°WCoalmont — 40.55°N, 106.32°WFort Union — 43.70°N, 104.70°WLoreto — 53.13°S, 70.97°WEastern View — 38.42°S, 144.18°ERedbank Plains — 27.65°S, 152.87°EMacquarie Harbor — 42.17°S, 145.36°ETaratu — 45.37°S, 170.45°EBuxin — 23.18°N, 112.88°EGuchengzi — 41.84°N, 123.90°EAckerman — 34.66°N, 89.10°W

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The named rock units Lygodium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 44 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lygodium and its relatives

Eocene

Where Lygodium and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,339 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 115 sites for Lygodium, 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

34 references

Each of the 127 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. 22 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 Lygodium

Credit
Marshman at English Wikipedia / Eric Guinther
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lygodium 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

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 itLygodiaceae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Swartz 1800