Neotoma cinerea
The bushy-tailed woodrat, or packrat is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae found in Canada and the United States. Its natural habitats are boreal forests, temperate forests, dry savanna, temperate shrubland, and temperate grassland.

R. B. Forbes · 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
- bushy-tailed woodratPBDB
- Sits inside
- NeotomaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Neotoma
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 198 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
15 occurrences of Neotoma cinerea on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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- Pleistocene92%
- Holocene8%
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.
Neotoma cinerea and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Neotoma cinerea and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
341 taxa- Canis latrans11 sites
- Lemmiscus curtatus10 sites
- Marmota flaviventris10 sites
- Vulpes vulpes10 sites
- Taxidea taxus9 sites
- Ochotona princeps7 sites
- Sylvilagus audubonii7 sites
- Antilocapra americana6 sites
- Lepus townsendii6 sites
- Mustela nigripes6 sites
- Neogale frenata6 sites
- Odocoileus hemionus6 sites
- Ovis canadensis6 sites
- Peromyscus maniculatus6 sites
- Puma concolor6 sites
- Thomomys6 sites
- Vulpes velox6 sites
- Antrozous pallidus5 sites
- Camelops5 sites
- Cynomys5 sites
- Lepus5 sites
- Lynx rufus5 sites
- Tamiasciurus hudsonicus5 sites
- Callospermophilus lateralis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Neotoma cinerea, 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
12 references- Middle Pleistocene arvicoline rodents and environmental change at 2900-meters elevation, Porcupine Cave, South Park, Colorado3
- Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Gunnison County, Colorado2
- Geologic history, stratigraphy, and paleontology of SAM Cave, north-central New Mexico1
- Mid-Wisconsinan vertebrates and their environment from January Cave, Alberta, Canada1
- Reconstruction of mid Wisconsinan environments in southern New Mexico1
- A Late Pleistocene-Holocene fauna from Chihuahua, Mexico1
- Quaternary paleontology and paleocology of Crystal Ball Cave, Millard County, Utah: with emphasis on mammals and description of a new species of fossil skunk1
- New Quaternary mammal localities in the upper Clark Fork River valley, western Montana1
- Pleistocene-Recent fauna of the Isleta Caves, Bernalillo County, New Mexico1
- The fauna of Burnet Cave, Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico1
- Descriptions of species of Pleistocene Vertebrata, types or specimens of most of which are preserved in the United States National Museum1
- New Mammalia from the Quaternary caves of California1
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. 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 content3
Picture of Neotoma cinerea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- R. B. Forbes
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Neotoma cinerea · MSB:Mamm:MSB:Mamm:76969
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itNeotoma through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ord 1815)