Rangifer

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- reindeerPBDB
- Sits inside
- RangiferiniPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Cervidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Cervidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 1.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.
139 occurrences of Rangifer 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
139 occurrences- Mioceneunder 1%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistocene55%
- Holocene44%
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
7 formations
- Ringold Formation1
- Cape Deceit Formation1
- American Falls Lake Bed E Formation1
- Oberer Travertin I Formation1
- Ten Mile Hills Beds Formation1
- Wando Formation1
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The named rock units Rangifer has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 132 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Rangifer and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Rangifer and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
811 taxa- Ursus maritimus42 sites
- Odobenus rosmarus33 sites
- Equus31 sites
- Erignathus barbatus31 sites
- Vulpes lagopus31 sites
- Ovibos moschatus30 sites
- Canis28 sites
- Phoca hispida24 sites
- Canis lupus20 sites
- Lepus arcticus20 sites
- Mammuthus primigenius20 sites
- Bison18 sites
- Vulpes18 sites
- Balaena mysticetus16 sites
- Ursus16 sites
- Bison priscus15 sites
- Branta14 sites
- Canis familiaris14 sites
- Microtus14 sites
- Delphinapterus leucas13 sites
- Larus13 sites
- Anatidae12 sites
- Cervus12 sites
- Equus caballus12 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 137 sites for Rangifer, 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
82 references- Polar bear fossil and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene in relation to sea ice extent and open water polynyas21
- Le gisement Pleistocene moyen et superieur d'Artenac (Saint-Mary, Charent): premier bilan interdisciplinaire7
- Late quaternary history of Washington land, North Greenland5
- The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe4
- Säugetierfunde und Pleistozänstratigraphie in der Kolyma-Niederung (Pleistocene stratigraphy from the Kolyma fluvial plain and it's mammal fossils)4
- Great Lakes Rangifer and Paleoindians: Archaeological and Paleontological Caribou Remains from Michigan3
- Mittelpleistozane Saugetierfaunen aus Mitteleuropa - der Versuch einer biostratigraphischen Zuordnung3
- Ice Age Vertebrates in the Canadian Arctic Islands3
- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna3
- The Pleistocene vertebrates of Michigan3
- Die jungpleistozänen Säugetierfaunen aus dem Travertingebiet von Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf (The Early Plestocene mammalian fauna from the travetin-area of Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf)3
- The Kor & Bot collection revisited, with a biostratigraphic interpretation of the Early Pleistocene Oosterschelde Fauna (Oosterschelde Estuary, the Netherlands)2
Each of the 139 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. 70 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 Rangifer
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Rangifer 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itRangiferini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hamilton-Smith 1827