Ensatina

The ensatina is a species complex of plethodontid (lungless) salamanders found in coniferous forests, oak woodland and chaparral from British Columbia, through Washington, Oregon, across California, all the way down to Baja California in Mexico. The genus Ensatina originated approximately 21.5 million years ago. It is usually considered as monospecific, being represented by a single species, Ensatina eschscholtzii, with several subspecies forming a ring species.

Ensatina

Caudatejake · 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
Also called
ensatinaPBDB
Sits inside
PlethodontidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At most 196 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 14 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences710 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Ensatina on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

1 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.

Ensatina and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ensatina and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

47 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Ensatina, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Ensatina

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

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Ensatina eschscholtzii · MVZ:Herp:MVZ:Herp:194136

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 itPlethodontidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1850