Micrurus
Micrurus is a genus of venomous coral snakes of the family Elapidae.

Holbrook, John Edwards, 1794-1871 ( English Wikipedia ) · 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
- coral snakePBDB
- Sits inside
- ElapidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Elapidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Elapidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20 Mya to 11.7 ka.
15 occurrences of Micrurus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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- Miocene60%
- Pleistocene40%
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
- Wicomico Formation1
- Upper Freshwater Molasse Formation · Molasse Group1
- Valentine Formation1
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The named rock units Micrurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Micrurus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Micrurus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
442 taxa- Natricinae7 sites
- Colubrinae6 sites
- Terrapene carolina6 sites
- Texasophis meini6 sites
- Vipera6 sites
- Dasypus bellus5 sites
- Elaphe5 sites
- Elapidae5 sites
- Natrix sansaniensis5 sites
- Anolis carolinensis4 sites
- Boidae4 sites
- Coluber constrictor4 sites
- Crotalus adamanteus4 sites
- Gastrophryne carolinensis4 sites
- Geochelone4 sites
- Geomys pinetis4 sites
- Naja romani4 sites
- Natrix4 sites
- Neonatrix4 sites
- Neonatrix europaea4 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus4 sites
- Ophisaurus4 sites
- Ophisaurus ventralis4 sites
- Paleoheterodon arcuatus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Micrurus, 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- Des serpents (Reptilia, Squamata) de type nord-américain dans le Miocène Français. Évolution parallèle ou dispersion2
- Snakes from Griesbeckerzell (Langhian, Early Badenian), North Alpine Foreland Basin (Germany), with comments on the evolution of snake faunas in Central Europe during the Miocene Climatic Optimum1
- Amphibians and squamate reptiles from the late early Miocene (MN 4) of Béon 1 (Montréal-du-Gers, southwestern France)1
- Fossil snake assemblages from the French Middle Miocene localities at La Grive (France)1
- Les squamates (Reptilia) du Miocène moyen de Sansan1
- Snakes of the lower/middle Miocene transition at Vieux Collonges (Rhône, France), with comments on the colonisation of western Europe by colubroids.1
- Description of Miocene snake from Petersbuch 2 with comments on the lower and middle Miocene ophidian faunas of southern Germany.1
- A mid-Pleistocene (Irvingtonian) herpetofauna from a cave in southcentral Texas1
- A new Late Pleistocene Conepatus and associated vertebrate fauna from Florida1
- Upper Miocene snakes (Reptilia, Serpentes) from Southeastern Nebraska1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna near Orange Lake, Florida1
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 Micrurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Holbrook, John Edwards, 1794-1871 ( English Wikipedia )
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Micrurus was found in Sketchfab.
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, “Micrurus”
- 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 itElapidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wagler 1824