Microtus
Searched as Microtus oeconomus gilmorei. The Paleobiology Database treats Microtus as the accepted name.
Microtus is a genus of voles found in North America, Europe and northern Asia. The genus name refers to the small ears of these animals. They are stout rodents with short ears, legs and tails. They eat green vegetation such as grasses and sedges in summer, and grains, seeds, root and bark at other times. The genus is also called "meadow voles".
José Ramón Pato Vicente · CC BY-SA 2.5 es · 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
- volePBDB
- Sits inside
- ArvicoliniPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Microtus on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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- Holocene100%
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.
Microtus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Microtus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
1,422 taxa- Equus84 sites
- Lepus53 sites
- Mimomys48 sites
- Myodes47 sites
- Sylvilagus40 sites
- Neotoma39 sites
- Peromyscus39 sites
- Pliomys39 sites
- Apodemus sylvaticus35 sites
- Leporidae35 sites
- Allocricetus34 sites
- Sorex32 sites
- Camelops28 sites
- Canis latrans28 sites
- Rana28 sites
- Thomomys28 sites
- Spermophilus26 sites
- Apodemus25 sites
- Bison25 sites
- Cervus25 sites
- Dipodomys25 sites
- Bufo24 sites
- Citellus24 sites
- Spermophilus tridecemlineatus24 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 481 sites for Microtus, and this reads 240 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 referenceEach 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 Microtus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- José Ramón Pato Vicente
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5 es
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Microtus”
- 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 itArvicolini through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schrank 1798