Quercus

An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, with some 500 species, both deciduous and evergreen. Fossil oaks date back to the Middle Eocene. Molecular phylogeny shows that the genus is divided into Old World and New World clades, but many oak species hybridise freely, making the genus's history difficult to resolve.

Quercus

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Also called
oakPBDB
Sits inside
FagaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 143.1 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 0 of 685 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 685 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 24 of 685 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 23 of 685 occurrencesEocene — about 75 of 685 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 49 of 685 occurrencesMiocene — about 239 of 685 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 85 of 685 occurrencesPleistocene — about 172 of 685 occurrences146–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences141–136 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences136–131 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences131–127 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences112–107 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences107–102 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences102–97 Mya — about 1 occurrence97–92 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences92–88 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences88–83 Mya — about 3 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 6 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 6 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 4 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 8 occurrences63–58 Mya — about 11 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 10 occurrences54–49 Mya — about 10 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 19 occurrences44–39 Mya — about 19 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 22 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 27 occurrences29–24 Mya — about 19 occurrences24–19 Mya — about 28 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 55 occurrences15–9.7 Mya — about 100 occurrences9.7–4.9 Mya — about 68 occurrences4.9–0 Mya — about 265 occurrences100.5 Mya11.7 ka146 Mya0 Mya

685 occurrences of Quercus 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

685 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

101 formations

Sanying — 26.42°N, 99.40°ESanying — 26.02°N, 100.00°ESanying — 26.51°N, 100.16°ESanying — 26.57°N, 100.13°ESanying — 25.51°N, 99.52°EJohn Day — 44.64°N, 120.30°WJohn Day — 45.00°N, 120.20°WJohn Day — 44.95°N, 120.33°WJohn Day — 44.14°N, 120.27°WJohn Day — 44.15°N, 120.31°WJohn Day — 44.57°N, 119.63°WJohn Day — 44.30°N, 120.83°WJohn Day — 44.16°N, 120.46°WJohn Day — 44.94°N, 120.40°WJohn Day — 44.16°N, 120.41°WFort Union — 45.18°N, 109.25°WFort Union — 47.10°N, 104.72°WFort Union — 43.87°N, 108.17°WFort Union — 44.90°N, 107.03°WFort Union — 43.03°N, 108.62°WFort Union — 41.55°N, 108.70°WFort Union — 46.57°N, 105.65°WFort Union — 46.88°N, 104.93°WFort Union — 48.18°N, 110.12°WFort Union — 45.37°N, 105.54°WFort Union — 44.29°N, 108.82°WFort Union — 41.28°N, 109.19°WFort Union — 47.00°N, 103.00°WFort Union — 46.92°N, 103.83°WXiaolongtan — 23.81°N, 103.20°EXiaolongtan — 25.42°N, 102.85°ELatah — 47.75°N, 117.55°WLatah — 47.64°N, 117.45°WLatah — 47.70°N, 116.75°WLatah — 47.65°N, 117.21°WChloropagus — 39.58°N, 119.37°WChloropagus — 39.58°N, 119.35°WChloropagus — 39.79°N, 118.94°WTemblor — 36.14°N, 120.36°WItahana — 36.25°N, 138.50°EItahana — 36.50°N, 139.00°EItahana — 36.25°N, 139.00°ESepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.25°WBangmai — 23.90°N, 100.02°EOgawa — 36.50°N, 138.00°EOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°EYagii — 36.08°N, 139.17°EOkinoyama — 34.00°N, 131.00°EEagle — 44.98°N, 108.87°WMiddlegate — 39.25°N, 117.88°WBopesta — 35.30°N, 118.50°WValentine — 42.00°N, 100.43°WGreen River — 39.78°N, 107.87°WGreen River — 41.10°N, 109.30°WSan Joaquin — 36.00°N, 120.06°WSalmon City — 45.18°N, 113.88°WAkeyo — 35.36°N, 137.18°ESayama — 35.78°N, 139.38°ESeto Porcelain Clay — 35.00°N, 137.00°E

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The named rock units Quercus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 77 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 336 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Quercus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Quercus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,498 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 310 sites for Quercus, 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

125 references

Each of the 685 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. 113 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 content3

Picture of Quercus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Quercus petraea · hlu:ccc:413

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
Yag1z
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 itFagaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

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