Azolla

Searched as Azolla cretacea. The Paleobiology Database treats Azolla as the accepted name.

Azolla is a genus of seven species of aquatic ferns in the family Salviniaceae. They are extremely reduced in form and specialized, having a significantly different appearance to other ferns and more resembling some mosses or even duckweeds. Azolla filiculoides is one of two fern species for which a reference genome has been published. It is believed that this genus grew so prolifically during the Eocene that it triggered a global cooling event that has lasted to the present.

Azolla

Kurt Stüber [1] · 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
SalviniaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At most 28 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 56 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 17 of 35 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 18 of 35 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 1 occurrence72–71 Mya — about 2 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 4 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 4 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 4 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 4 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 2 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences84.2 Mya55.4 Mya

35 occurrences of Azolla on record, most of them in the Paleocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

35 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

5 formations

Fort Union — 44.80°N, 106.00°WFort Union — 43.50°N, 104.90°WFort Union — 46.35°N, 103.87°WFort Union — 46.02°N, 103.76°WHell Creek — 46.29°N, 103.95°WHell Creek — 46.02°N, 103.76°WScollard — 51.93°N, 112.83°WLoncoche — 36.53°S, 69.82°WColi Toro — 41.24°S, 69.14°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Azolla has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Azolla and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Azolla and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

1,208 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 128 sites for Azolla, 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

6 references

Each of the 35 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 Azolla

Credit
Kurt Stüber [1]
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Azolla 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 itSalviniaceae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamarck 1783