Manidae
Manidae ("spirits") is the only extant family of pangolins. This family comprises three genera, as well as the extinct Fayum pangolin.

derivative work: user:The Explaner · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- ManoideaPBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 27 million years on record.
The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
15 occurrences of Manidae on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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- Oligocene13%
- Miocene9%
- Pliocene31%
- Pleistocene27%
- Holocene20%
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
4 formations
- Varswater Formation3
- Jebel Qatrani Formation2
- Swartkrans Formation · Transvaal Group1
- Warwire Formation · Albertine Group1
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The named rock units Manidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Manidae and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Manidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
295 taxa- Manis10 sites
- Alcelaphini4 sites
- Aves4 sites
- Bovidae4 sites
- Canidae4 sites
- Gazella4 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis4 sites
- Raphicerus4 sites
- Taurotragus oryx4 sites
- Bathyergidae3 sites
- Cercopithecidae3 sites
- Equus3 sites
- Hippopotamus3 sites
- Lagomorpha3 sites
- Lepus capensis3 sites
- Libytherium3 sites
- Lupulella mesomelas3 sites
- Lynx issiodorensis3 sites
- Papio ursinus3 sites
- Parahyaena brunnea3 sites
- Procavia antiqua3 sites
- Procavia capensis3 sites
- Raphicerus campestris3 sites
- Redunca fulvorufula3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Manidae, 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 earliest fossil pangolin (Pholidota: Manidae) from Africa2
- An early Pliocene pangolin (Mammalia; Pholidota) from Langebaanweg, South Africa1
- The Late Neogene elephantoid-bearing faunas of Indonesia and their palaeozoogeographic implications. A study of the terrestrial faunal succession of Sulawesi, Flores and Java, including evidence for early hominid dispersal east of Wallace's Line1
- Late Miocene anthrcothere (Mammalia,Artiodactyla) from tropicalAfrica1
- The Plio-Pleistocene mammalian succession of the Oltet Valley, Dacic Basin, Romania1
- Later Stone Age Faunal Samples from Heuningneskrans Shelter (Transvaal) and Leopard's Hill Cave (Zambia)1
- Palaeoecology of the Pliocene and lower Pleistocene hominids of southern Africa: how good is the chronological and paleoenvironmental evidence?1
- On the mammal fauna of the Wajak Cave, Java (Indonesia)1
- Paleoenvironmental and Cultural Implications of Late Holocene Archaeological Faunas from the Orange Free State and North Central Cape Province, South Africa1
- The Pliocene fossil occurences in 'E' Quarry, Langebaanweg, South Africa1
- The Late Cenozoic Carnivora of the South-Western Cape Province1
- The late quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change1
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 Manidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- derivative work: user:The Explaner
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Manidae”
- 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 itManoidea through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1821