Colubroidea

Colubroidea is a superfamily of snakes in the clade Colubroides that includes Colubridae, with some studies splitting Colubridae into multiple families that make up Colubroidea. Historically, Colubroidea also included other caenophidian snakes such as cobras and vipers, as these snakes form a clade. However these groups are now divided into several distinct, but related, families. Zaher et al. (2009) proposed to redefine Colubroidea for colubrids and related families, while designating Colubroides as the group containing vipers and cobras as well as colubroids. The ReptileDatabase considers Colubroidea to be composed of Colubridae and the members of its sister group, Elapoidea, and does not recognize the division of Colubridae into multiple families.

Colubroidea

Jean-Lou Justine · 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
AlethinophidiaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 559 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 559 occurrencesEocene — about 15 of 559 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 16 of 559 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 225 of 559 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 81 of 559 occurrencesPleistocene — about 209 of 559 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence54–51 Mya — about 2 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–37 Mya — about 4 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 4 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences31–28 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 6 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 11 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 17 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 20 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 58 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 53 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 42 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 30 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 77 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 228 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka85 Mya0 Mya

559 occurrences of Colubroidea on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

559 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

75 formations

Upper Freshwater Molasse — 48.44°N, 11.04°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.63°N, 11.80°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.66°N, 10.23°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.09°N, 10.03°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.17°N, 10.10°ENsungwe — 8.93°S, 33.20°ERexroad — 37.10°N, 100.90°WRexroad — 37.20°N, 100.30°WRexroad — 37.13°N, 100.48°WVogel River Series — 3.22°S, 35.21°EVogel River Series — 3.25°S, 35.20°EVogel River Series — 3.13°S, 35.13°EOlduvai — 2.98°S, 35.37°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.34°EAsh Hollow — 41.30°N, 101.89°WAsh Hollow — 42.63°N, 100.05°WAsh Hollow — 42.30°N, 98.00°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WEdelény — 48.39°N, 20.64°EVille — 50.90°N, 6.45°ESpilia — 41.15°N, 23.48°EKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WValentine — 40.02°N, 98.53°WLong Pine — 42.38°N, 98.23°WLower Headon Beds — 50.63°N, 1.55°WLower Headon Beds — 50.67°N, 1.53°WUttarbaini — 32.71°N, 74.85°ECrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WCórcoles — 40.47°N, 2.68°WGuga — 26.65°N, 127.96°EFleming — 30.50°N, 95.00°WFleming — 30.68°N, 95.05°WDam — 25.98°N, 49.39°EMost — 50.42°N, 13.36°ECromer Forest Bed — 52.94°N, 1.25°EAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°W"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°W

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The named rock units Colubroidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 51 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 388 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Colubroidea and its relatives

Miocene

Where Colubroidea and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

3,820 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 370 sites for Colubroidea, 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

244 references

Each of the 559 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. 232 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 content1

Picture of Colubroidea

Credit
Jean-Lou Justine
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Colubroidea 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 itAlethinophidia through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Oppel 1811)