Ballusia

Ballusia was a genus of small bear from the Early Miocene epoch, about 20.5-18 million years ago. Fossil remains attributed to the genus have been uncovered in Europe (Poland) and Asia. The genus Ballusia was established in 1998 on the basis of different fossils originally classified as various species of the genera Ursavus and Hemicyon, with B. elmensis as the type species. The exact relationship of Ballusia to "true" bears are not yet fully understood: many palaeontologists have classified it as a primitive member of Ursinae, but its known skeletal elements have some features in common with the extinct bear subfamily Hemicyoninae. Because of this, some researchers refer Ballusia as "Ursidae incertae sedis". Ginsburg and Morales regarded B. elmenensis as ancestral to Ursavus, as did Marciszak and Lipecki, even though the temporal range of the two genera seems to have overlapped.

Ballusia

Conty · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
UrsinaePBDB
Diet
herbivore, carnivorePBDB, for Ursidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Ursidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 920 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 16.9 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 6 of 6 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.8–9.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.2–8.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.6–8.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.0–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–6.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.7–6.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.1–5.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.5–4.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16.9 Mya – 15.98 Mya23.5 Mya4.8 Mya

6 occurrences of Ballusia on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

6 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

Ville — 50.90°N, 6.45°E

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The named rock units Ballusia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ballusia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Ballusia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

236 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Ballusia, 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 6 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 Ballusia

Credit
Conty
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ballusia was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itUrsinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ginsburg and Morales 1998