Arvicola amphibius

The European water vole or northern water vole is a semi-aquatic rodent. It is often informally called the water rat, though it only superficially resembles a true rat. Water voles have rounder noses than rats, deep brown fur, chubby faces, and short fuzzy ears; unlike rats, their tails, paws, and ears are covered with hair.

Arvicola amphibius

Peter Trimming from Croydon, England · CC BY 2.0 · 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
European water volePBDB
Sits inside
ArvicolaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Arvicola
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 3.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Miocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 3 of 4 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 4 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences583 ka–389 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.6 Mya129 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Arvicola amphibius 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

4 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

Cromer Forest Bed — 52.94°N, 1.25°ECromer Forest Bed — 51.64°N, 0.80°E

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The named rock units Arvicola amphibius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Arvicola amphibius and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Arvicola amphibius and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

109 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Arvicola amphibius, 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

3 references

Each of the 4 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 Arvicola amphibius

Credit
Peter Trimming from Croydon, England
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itArvicola through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)