Osmunda

Osmunda is a genus of primarily temperate-zone ferns of family Osmundaceae. Five to ten species have been listed for this genus. They have existed since the Early Cretaceous.

Osmunda

Uncredited · 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
OsmundaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 236 million years on record.

The record covers at least 237 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 241.464 Mya to 0 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 1 of 69 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 69 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 69 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 69 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 69 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 69 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 8 of 69 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 11 of 69 occurrencesEocene — about 12 of 69 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 69 occurrencesMiocene — about 15 of 69 occurrencesPliocene — about 12 of 69 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 69 occurrences246–238 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences238–230 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences140–131 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences131–123 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences123–115 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences115–107 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences107–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–90 Mya — about 4 occurrences90–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–57 Mya — about 7 occurrences57–49 Mya — about 8 occurrences49–41 Mya — about 6 occurrences41–33 Mya — about 3 occurrences33–25 Mya — about 3 occurrences25–16 Mya — about 4 occurrences16–8.2 Mya — about 9 occurrences8.2–0 Mya — about 17 occurrences237 Mya11.7 ka246 Mya0 Mya

69 occurrences of Osmunda 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

69 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

26 formations

Frontier — 41.79°N, 110.54°WFrontier — 41.30°N, 110.55°WFrontier — 41.56°N, 110.57°WGolden Valley — 47.31°N, 102.11°WGolden Valley — 46.97°N, 102.08°WGolden Valley — 47.37°N, 103.02°WRavenscrag — 49.51°N, 109.02°WAspen Shale — 42.09°N, 110.51°WAspen Shale — 42.08°N, 110.16°WChallis Volcanics — 44.36°N, 114.22°WTullock — 46.58°N, 105.88°WThanet — 51.37°N, 1.13°EMotojuku — 36.25°N, 138.75°EEifel — 50.10°N, 6.84°EHaughton — 75.41°N, 89.43°WBovey Tracey Lignite — 50.58°N, 3.68°WSalmon City — 45.18°N, 113.88°WDenver — 39.75°N, 105.22°WKovachinskaya — 60.42°N, 165.92°EWasatch — 39.53°N, 107.78°WFort Union — 47.97°N, 102.55°WSierra Madre — 16.68°N, 93.46°WFox Hills — 46.53°N, 100.47°WA2 subunit — 45.95°N, 0.90°WHalf Three Point — 62.18°S, 58.97°WTschermakfjellet — 78.49°N, 20.32°EWuyun — 49.28°N, 129.67°EDalianhe — 46.00°N, 129.00°EChangchang — 20.00°N, 110.50°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Osmunda has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Osmunda and its relatives

Miocene

Where Osmunda and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

857 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 53 sites for Osmunda, 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

35 references

Each of the 69 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. 23 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 content2

Picture of Osmunda

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itOsmundaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

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