Nesiotites
Nesiotites is an extinct genus of large red-toothed shrews belonging to the tribe Nectogalini that inhabited the Balearic Islands from the latest Miocene/Early Pliocene up until the arrival of humans on the islands during the late Holocene. It was present on Mallorca and Menorca. It represented one of only 3 native land mammals to the islands at the time of human arrival, alongside the dwarf goat-antelope Myotragus and the giant dormouse Hypnomys. The genus is closely related to the also recently extinct Corsican-Sardinian shrews belonging to the genus Asoriculus, with their closest living relatives being the Himalayan shrews of the genus Soriculus.

Apokryltaros · 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
- SoricidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Soricidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Soricidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 2.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
14 occurrences of Nesiotites on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
14 occurrences- Pliocene16%
- Pleistocene84%
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.
Nesiotites and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Nesiotites and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
89 taxa- Prolagus sardus10 sites
- Microtus (Tyrrhenicola) henseli8 sites
- Podarcis8 sites
- Rhagamys orthodon8 sites
- Speleomantes sp.7 sites
- "Colubrines" indet.6 sites
- Anura6 sites
- Lacerta6 sites
- Passeriformes6 sites
- Serpentes6 sites
- Aves5 sites
- Cynotherium5 sites
- Natrix5 sites
- Sauria5 sites
- Athene4 sites
- Discoglossus sardus4 sites
- Pyrrhocorax4 sites
- Talpa tyrrhenica4 sites
- Accipitridae3 sites
- Anatidae3 sites
- Aquila3 sites
- Bubo insularis3 sites
- Bufo viridis3 sites
- Corvidae3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Nesiotites, 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
5 references- Plio-Pleistocene fossil vertebrates of Monte Tuttavista (Orosei, Eastern Sardinia, Italy), an overview10
- First evidence of faunal succession in terrestrial vertebrates of the Plio-Pleistocene of the Balearic Islands, western Mediterranean1
- The Cova des Pas de Vallgornera (Llucmajor, Mallorca): a singular deposit bearing an exceptional well preserved Early Pleistocene vertebrate fauna1
- A new species of Pica (Aves: Corvidae) from the Plio-Pleistocene of Mallorca, Balearic Islands (Western Mediterranean).1
- Une nouvelle forme insulaire d'effraie geante, Tyto balearica n. sp. (Aves, Strigiformes), du Plio-Pleistocene des Baleares1
Each of the 14 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 Nesiotites
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Nesiotites was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource was 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, “Nesiotites”
- 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 itSoricidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bate 1945