Aplodontia

The mountain beaver or sewellel is a North American rodent. It is the only living member of its genus, Aplodontia, and family, Aplodontiidae. It should not be confused with true North American and Eurasian beavers, to which it is not closely related; the mountain beaver is instead more closely related to squirrels. There are seven subspecies of mountain beaver, six of which are found in California and three of which are endemic to the state.

Aplodontia

Western Ecological Research Center · 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
mountain beaverPBDB
Sits inside
AplodontiidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Aplodontiidae
Life habit
semifossorialPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 4.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 9 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 8 of 9 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 9 occurrences9.6–9.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.2–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.6–8.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.3–7.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.9–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–6.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.9–6.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.6–6.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.3–5.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.9–5.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.6–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–5.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.0–4.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–990 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences990 ka–660 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences660 ka–330 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330 ka–0 Mya — about 7 occurrences4.7 Mya129 ka9.9 Mya0 Mya

9 occurrences of Aplodontia 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

9 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

1 formation

McKay — 45.50°N, 118.80°W

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The named rock units Aplodontia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aplodontia and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Aplodontia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

203 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Aplodontia, 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

7 references

Each of the 9 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 Aplodontia

Credit
Western Ecological Research Center
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Aplodontia rufa · AMNH:Mammals:M-142747

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 itAplodontiidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Richardson 1829