Xerus

Xerini is a tribe of ground squirrels occurring in Africa and Asia. With the tribes Marmotini and Protoxerini, they form the subfamily Xerinae. There are five living genera—Xerus, the unstriped ground squirrel; Euxerus, the striped ground squirrel; Geosciurus, the Cape and mountain ground squirrels; Atlantoxerus, containing the living Barbary ground squirrel of North Africa and some extinct species; and Spermophilopsis, containing the long-clawed ground squirrel of Central Asia.

Xerus

Gary M. Stolz · Public Domain · 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
African ground squirrelPBDB
Sits inside
XeriniPBDB
Diet
granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
Life habit
semifossorialPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 3 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 6 of 16 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 6 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.9–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.7–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.5–7.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.0–6.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.4–5.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.8–5.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.2–4.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.6–4.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.1–3.5 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences3.5–2.9 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.9–2.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.3–1.7 Mya — about 4 occurrences580 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence15.98 Mya11.7 ka17.4 Mya0 Mya

16 occurrences of Xerus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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

16 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

3 formations

Vogel River Series — 3.22°S, 35.21°EVogel River Series — 3.13°S, 35.13°EShungura — 5.08°N, 36.03°EHadar — 11.14°N, 40.60°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Xerus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Xerus and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Xerus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

337 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Xerus, 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

9 references

Each of the 16 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 Xerus

Credit
Gary M. Stolz
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Xerus 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.

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 itXerini through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hemprich and Ehrenberg 1833