Corylus avellana
Corylus avellana, the common hazel, is a species of flowering plant in the birch family Betulaceae. The shrubs usually grow 3–8 metres tall. The nut is round, in contrast to the longer filbert nut. Common hazel is native to Europe and Western Asia.

Uncredited · 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
- CorylusPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae
Time the record covers
At least 8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka.
10 occurrences of Corylus avellana on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
10 occurrences- Miocene43%
- Pliocene52%
- Pleistocene5%
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
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The named rock units Corylus avellana has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Corylus avellana and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Corylus avellana and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
24 taxa- ? Fagaropsis sp.1 site
- Alisma1 site
- Alnus1 site
- Azolla1 site
- Carpolithes1 site
- Ceratophyllum demersum1 site
- Decodon1 site
- Ilex1 site
- Juglans1 site
- Liquidambar1 site
- Ludwigia1 site
- Myriophyllum1 site
- Nupar cf. canaliculatum1 site
- Oenanthe1 site
- Physalis1 site
- Prunus1 site
- Pterocarya1 site
- Pyracantha sp.1 site
- Ranunculus sceleratus1 site
- Sparganium1 site
- Styrax1 site
- Typha1 site
- Vitis1 site
- Zelkova1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Corylus avellana, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
7 references- Die pliozaenen Floren von Thueringen, Deutsche Demokratische Republik3
- Die mittelmiozaenen und obermiozaenen Floren aus der Meuroer und Raunoer Folge in der Lausitz. III. Fundstellen und Palaeobiologie2
- The section of Torre Picchio (Terni, Umbria, Central Italy): A Villafranchian site rich in vertebrates, molluscs, ostracods and plants.1
- Die "Saugbaggerflora", eine Frucht- und Samenflora aus dem Grenzbereich Miozaen- Pliozaen von Sessenheim im Elsass (Frankreich)1
- Miocene floras in the lower Rhenish basin and their ecological interpretation1
- Allochthonous seed and fruit floras from the Pliocene of the Lower Rhine Basin1
- Miocenska Flora ze Starych Gliwic na Slasku (Miocene Flora of Stare Gliwice in Upper Silesia)1
Each of the 10 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 content2
Picture of Corylus avellana
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itCorylus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753