Menispermum

Menispermum (moonseed) is a small genus of deciduous climbing woody vines in the moonseed family (Menispermaceae). Plants in this genus have small dioecious flowers, and clusters of small grape-like drupes. The name, moonseed, comes from the shape of the seed, which resembles a crescent moon. The word Menispermum is derived from the Greek words μήν (mēn), meaning (crescent) moon, and σπέρμα (sperma) meaning seed. The common name moonseed is also applied to some other species in the related genus Cocculus.

Menispermum

USDA Forest Service · Public Domain · 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
moonseedPBDB
Sits inside
CocculinaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 60 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 89.8 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 2 of 4 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 4 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89–86 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences35–32 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences29–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–7.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.9–4.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.9–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72.2 Mya11.63 Mya92 Mya2 Mya

4 occurrences of Menispermum on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

4 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

3 formations

Comox — 49.75°N, 125.00°WProtection — 49.00°N, 124.00°WJohn Day — 44.64°N, 120.30°W

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The named rock units Menispermum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Menispermum and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Menispermum and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

40 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Menispermum, 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

3 references

Each of the 4 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 content1

Picture of Menispermum

Credit
USDA Forest Service
Licence
Public Domain
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

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 itCocculinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753