Atilax paludinosus
The marsh mongoose, also called water mongoose, is a medium-sized mongoose species native to sub-Saharan Africa that inhabits freshwater wetlands. It has been listed as a Least-concern species on the IUCN Red List since 2008.

Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa · 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
- marsh mongoosePBDB
- Sits inside
- AtilaxPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Herpestidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Herpestidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Mass
- 108.5 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
10 occurrences of Atilax paludinosus 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
10 occurrences- Pleistocene60%
- Holocene40%
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.
Atilax paludinosus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Atilax paludinosus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
195 taxa- Panthera pardus8 sites
- Felis lybica7 sites
- Homo sapiens7 sites
- Lupulella mesomelas7 sites
- Lutra capensis7 sites
- Herpestes ichneumon6 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius6 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis6 sites
- Mellivora capensis6 sites
- Papio ursinus6 sites
- Parahyaena brunnea6 sites
- Pelea capreolus6 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus6 sites
- Potamochoerus porcus6 sites
- Procavia capensis6 sites
- Syncerus caffer6 sites
- Arctocephalus pusillus5 sites
- Raphicerus campestris5 sites
- Redunca arundinum5 sites
- Redunca fulvorufula5 sites
- Taurotragus oryx5 sites
- Tragelaphus scriptus5 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus4 sites
- Bovidae4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Atilax paludinosus, 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
10 references- Middle and later Stone Age large mammal and tortoise remains from Die Kelders Cave 1, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
- Environmental, Ecological and Paleoanthropological Implications of the Late Pleistocene Mammalian Fauna from Equus Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa1
- Les faunes de vertebres quaternaires en Afrique centrale1
- Structure of Nylsrley Savanna1
- The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa1
- Later Stone Age Subsistence at Byeneskranskop, South Africa1
- Paleoenvironmental and Cultural Implications of Late Holocene Archaeological Faunas from the Orange Free State and North Central Cape Province, South Africa1
- Paleoanthropological Implications of the Non-Archaeological Bone Assemblages from Swartklip 1, South-Western Cape Province, South Africa1
- Excavations at the Gordon's Bay Shell Midden. South-Western Cape1
- The late quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change1
Each of the 10 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 Atilax paludinosus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Atilax paludinosus 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 itAtilax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cuvier 1829)