Ficus carica
The fig is the edible fruit of Ficus carica, a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, and to western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world. Ficus carica is the type species of the genus Ficus, which comprises over 800 tropical and subtropical plant species.

Trew, C.J · Public Domain · 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
- FicusPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae
Time the record covers
At most 5.4 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Ficus carica 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
1 occurrences- Pliocene52%
- Pleistocene48%
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 Ficus carica has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Ficus carica and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Ficus carica and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- ? Fagaropsis sp.1 site
- Carex pseudocyperus1 site
- Carpolithes1 site
- Ceratophyllum demersum1 site
- Chenopodiaceae1 site
- Decodon1 site
- Ilex1 site
- Liquidambar1 site
- Lobelia1 site
- Ludwigia1 site
- Magnolia1 site
- Myriophyllum1 site
- Nupar cf. canaliculatum1 site
- Nymphaea1 site
- Oenanthe1 site
- Physalis1 site
- Pilea1 site
- Polygonaceae1 site
- Pterocarya1 site
- Pyracantha sp.1 site
- Quercus1 site
- Ranunculus sceleratus1 site
- Rubus1 site
- Rumex1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Ficus carica, 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 referenceEach 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Ficus carica
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Trew, C.J
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Fig”
- 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 itFicus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753