Acalypha

Acalypha is a genus of flowering plants in the family Euphorbiaceae. It is the sole genus of the subtribe Acalyphinae. It is one of the largest euphorb genera, with approximately 450 to 462 species. The genus name Acalypha is from the Ancient Greek ἀκαλύφη (akalúphē) ("nettle"), an alternative form of ἀκαλήφη (akalḗphē), and was inspired by the nettle-like leaves. General common names include copperleaf and three-seeded mercury. Native North American species are generally inconspicuous most of the year until the fall when their stems and foliage turn a distinctive coppery-red.

Acalypha

Augustus Binu / facebook · 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
Sits inside
EuphorbiaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 37 million years on record.

The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 20 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 20 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 20 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 20 occurrencesPleistocene — about 15 of 20 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences6.5–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–3.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.3–1.6 Mya — about 4 occurrences1.6–0 Mya — about 12 occurrences37.71 Mya129 ka49 Mya0 Mya

20 occurrences of Acalypha 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

20 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

2 formations

Ngorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.35°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Acalypha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Acalypha and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Acalypha and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

328 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Acalypha, 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

8 references

Each of the 20 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 Acalypha

Credit
Augustus Binu / facebook
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Acalypha was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itEuphorbiaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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