Cervus
Searched as Cervus duvauceli. The Paleobiology Database treats Cervus as the accepted name.
Cervus is a genus of deer that primarily are native to Eurasia, although one species occurs in northern Africa and another in North America. In addition to the species presently placed in this genus, it has included a whole range of other species now commonly placed in other genera. Additionally, the species-level taxonomy is in a state of flux.

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
- CerviniPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Cervidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
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.
6 occurrences of Cervus 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holocene2%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Cervus 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.
Cervus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cervus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,398 taxa- Equus88 sites
- Microtus54 sites
- Canis lupus50 sites
- Stephanorhinus etruscus48 sites
- Sus scrofa45 sites
- Bison41 sites
- Mimomys38 sites
- Bovidae34 sites
- Mammuthus meridionalis34 sites
- Megaloceros34 sites
- Lepus33 sites
- Equus caballus32 sites
- Ursus32 sites
- Allohippus stenonis31 sites
- Capreolus capreolus30 sites
- Myodes30 sites
- Canis28 sites
- Hystrix28 sites
- Pliomys28 sites
- Sus28 sites
- Vulpes vulpes28 sites
- Castor fiber27 sites
- Microtus arvalis26 sites
- Allocricetus25 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 427 sites for Cervus, and this reads 240 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
2 references- Large mammal fossil occurrences and associated archaeological evidence in Pleistocene contexts of peninsular India and Sri Lanka5
- Quaternary geology of Bankura District, West Bengal, India1
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 content3
Picture of Cervus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Lucanus cervus · ypm:ent:626274
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cervus”
- 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 itCervini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758