Calomys
Vesper mice are rodents belonging to the genus Calomys. They are widely distributed in South America. Some species are notable as the vectors of Argentinian hemorrhagic fever and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.

Cláudio Dias Timm from Rio Grande do Sul · CC BY-SA 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
- vesper mousePBDB
- Sits inside
- PhyllotiniPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 4.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
24 occurrences of Calomys 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
24 occurrences- Miocene4%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistocene62%
- Holocene34%
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
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The named rock units Calomys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 18 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Calomys and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Calomys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
401 taxa- Ctenomys10 sites
- Akodon9 sites
- Reithrodon auritus8 sites
- Galea leucoblephara6 sites
- Oligoryzomys6 sites
- Monodelphis domestica5 sites
- Smilodon populator5 sites
- Thrichomys5 sites
- Thylamys5 sites
- Chaetophractus villosus4 sites
- Euphractus sexcinctus4 sites
- Holochilus4 sites
- Holochilus brasiliensis4 sites
- Macrauchenia patagonica4 sites
- Mazama4 sites
- Microcavia australis4 sites
- Oryzomys4 sites
- Oryzomys subflavus4 sites
- Oxymycterus4 sites
- Pampatherium humboldtii4 sites
- Pecari tajacu4 sites
- Pseudoryzomys simplex4 sites
- Zaedyus pichiy4 sites
- Andinomys edax3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Calomys, 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
19 references- Fauna de mamíferos do Quaternário de Serra da Mesa (Goiás, Brasil)3
- Small mammals taphonomy and environmental evolution during Late Pleistocene-Holocene in Monte Desert: The evidence of Gruta del Indio (central west Argentina)2
- La Faune Pleistocene du Piaui (Nordeste du Bresil): Implications Paleoecologiques et Biochronologiques2
- The Eocene to Pleistocene vertebrates of Bolivia and their stratigraphic context: a review2
- Síntesis actualizada del registro paleontológico pleistoceno en el Noroeste argentino1
- Evolution of small mammal communities during the late Quaternary in a middle-altitude valley of Northwestern Argentina1
- Increased xenarthran diversity of the Great American Biotic Interchange: a new genus and species of ground sloth (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Megalonychidae) from the Hemphillian (late Miocene) of Jalisco, Mexico1
- First record of a Late Holocene fauna associated with an ephemeral fluvial sequence in La Pampa Province, Argentina. Taphonomy and paleoenvironment1
- Diversidade de pequenos mamíferos (Didelphimorphia e Rodentia) do Holoceno do nordeste do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil: implicações taxonômicas e paleo ambientais1
- Roedores y Marsupiales en Torno Al Límite Pleistoceno/Holoceno en Catamarca, Argentina: Extinciones y Evolución Ambiental1
- Late Pleistocene cingulates (Mammalia: Xenarthra) from Mene de Inciarte tar pits, Sierra de Perijá, western Venezuela1
- Quaternary mammals from Serra do Bodoquena, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil1
Each of the 24 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. 7 further references are not listed. 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 Calomys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Cláudio Dias Timm from Rio Grande do Sul
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Calomys laucha laucha · UMMZ:mammals:134402
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 itPhyllotini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Waterhouse 1837)