Thujopsis
Thujopsis is a genus of conifer in the cypress family, Cupressaceae, the sole member of which is Thujopsis dolabrata. It is endemic to Japan, where it is known as asunaro (あすなろ). It is similar to the closely related genus Thuja (arborvitae), differing in its broader, thicker leaves and cones.

KENPEI · 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
- hibaPBDB
- Sits inside
- CupressoideaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta
Time the record covers
At least 22 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 5.333 Mya.
5 occurrences of Thujopsis on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
5 occurrencesThese 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
1 formation
- Itahana Formation · Tomioka Group4
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The named rock units Thujopsis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Thujopsis and its relatives
MioceneWhere Thujopsis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
81 taxa- Fagus3 sites
- Zelkova ungeri3 sites
- Abies2 sites
- Acer2 sites
- Actinodaphne2 sites
- Alnus2 sites
- Bambusites2 sites
- Carpinus2 sites
- Cinnamomum2 sites
- Cladrastis2 sites
- Ficus tiliaefolia2 sites
- Lindera2 sites
- Liquidambar2 sites
- Metasequoia occidentalis2 sites
- Populus2 sites
- Quercus2 sites
- Vitis2 sites
- Acer rousei1 site
- Acer stewarti1 site
- Acer trilobatum1 site
- Acer wehri1 site
- Aesculus1 site
- Alnus parvifolia1 site
- Amentotaxus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Thujopsis, 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
2 references- Late Miocene and Pliocene Floras in Central Honshu, Japan4
- The McAbee flora of British Columbia and its relation to the Early-Middle Eocene Okanagan Highlands flora of the Pacific Northwest1
Each of the 5 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 content2
Picture of Thujopsis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- KENPEI
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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, “Thujopsis”
- 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 itCupressoideae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Siebold and Zuccarini 1842