Equus asinus

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- donkeyPBDB
- Sits inside
- EquusPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Equus
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Equus
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
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.
31 occurrences of Equus asinus 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
31 occurrences- Pleistocene80%
- Holocene20%
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
4 formations
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The named rock units Equus asinus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Equus asinus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Equus asinus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
239 taxa- Bos taurus12 sites
- Bos primigenius11 sites
- Gazella dorcas11 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius11 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus9 sites
- Clarias8 sites
- Bovidae6 sites
- Canis6 sites
- Hyaena hyaena6 sites
- Canis aureus5 sites
- Hystrix cristata5 sites
- Sus scrofa5 sites
- Aves4 sites
- Bos4 sites
- Felis silvestris4 sites
- Homoioceras antiquus4 sites
- Lepus4 sites
- Lepus capensis4 sites
- Nanger soemmerringii4 sites
- Ovis ammon4 sites
- Ovis aries4 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus4 sites
- Struthio camelus4 sites
- Alcelaphini3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Equus asinus, 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
13 references- Kom Ombo: Preliminary Report on the Fauna of Late Paleolithic Sites in Upper Egypt8
- Large mammal fossil occurrences and associated archaeological evidence in Pleistocene contexts of peninsular India and Sri Lanka5
- Wendorf and Schild, 19804
- Wendorf and Schild, 19763
- The Late Prehistory of the Eastern Sahel2
- Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Occupations in the Upper Atbara River Valley, Sudan2
- Povoado muculmano na Ponta do Castelo (Aljezur)1
- Le site paleontologique et archeologique de DoukkalaII:premier jalon en Afrique du Nord dun comportement humain assimilable a un charongnage controle et actif1
- Holocene Vertebrate Fossils from Isla Floreana, Galapagos1
- Faunal Evidence for Early Stockkeeping in the Central Rift Valley of Kenya: Preliminary Findings1
- A Later Prehistory of Tangier, Morocco1
- Relationships of the Late Pleistocene Vertebrate Fauna from Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt1
Each of the 31 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. 1 further reference is 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 content3

Picture of Equus asinus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Equus asinus · umr:Tur322
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEquus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)