Ephedra distachya

Ephedra distachya is a shrub in the family Ephedraceae that stands about 25 cm to 50 cm high. The shrub grows in many parts of the world, including southern and central Europe and western and central Asia. Its local names include somlatha. Ephedra distachya lives on grey dunes which are fixed and stable sand dunes that are covered in continuous vegetation.

Ephedra distachya

Le.Loup.Gris · 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
EphedraPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

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.

Pliocene — about 0 of 29 occurrencesPleistocene — about 29 of 29 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 29 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.5–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–2.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.3–2.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.2–2.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.1–2.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.0–1.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.8–1.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.7–1.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.6–1.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.5–1.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.4–1.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–1.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.0–924 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence103 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.08 Mya0 Mya

29 occurrences of Ephedra distachya 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

29 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.

Ephedra distachya and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ephedra distachya and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Ephedra distachya, 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

7 references

Each of the 29 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ephedra distachya

Credit
Le.Loup.Gris
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ephedra distachya was found in Sketchfab.

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 itEphedra through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753