Amphiumidae

Amphiuma is a genus of aquatic salamanders from the southeastern United States, the only extant genus within the family Amphiumidae. They are colloquially known as amphiumas. They are also known to fishermen as "conger eels" or "Congo snakes", which are zoologically incorrect designations or misnomers, since amphiumas are actually salamanders, and not eels (fish), nor reptiles and are not from Congo. Amphiuma exhibits one of the largest complements of DNA in the living world, around 25 times more than a human.

Amphiumidae

Wagler, Johann · 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
Sits inside
UrodelaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 72 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 3 of 18 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 18 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 1 of 18 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 18 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene — about 6 of 18 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 1 occurrence65–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–60 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences60–57 Mya — about 1 occurrence57–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences72.2 Mya11.7 ka85 Mya0 Mya

18 occurrences of Amphiumidae 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

18 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

6 formations

Fort Union — 44.91°N, 108.93°WFort Union — 47.60°N, 107.00°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 46.33°N, 103.90°WFleming — 30.70°N, 94.70°WGreen River — 41.78°N, 110.73°WRavenscrag — 49.06°N, 102.75°WMarshalltown — 40.30°N, 74.30°W

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The named rock units Amphiumidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Amphiumidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Amphiumidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

722 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Amphiumidae, 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

14 references

Each of the 18 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. 2 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 Amphiumidae

Credit
Wagler, Johann
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Amphiumidae 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 itUrodela through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1825