Ilex aquifolium

Ilex aquifolium, the holly, common holly, English holly, European holly, or occasionally Christmas holly, is a species of flowering plant in the family Aquifoliaceae, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia. It is regarded as the type species of the genus Ilex, which by association is also called holly. It is an evergreen tree or shrub found, for example, in shady areas of forests of oak and in beech hedges. In the British Isles it is one of very few native hardwood evergreen trees. It has a great capacity to adapt to different conditions and is a pioneer species that repopulates the margins of forests or clearcuts.

Ilex aquifolium

Jürgen Howaldt · CC BY-SA 2.0 de · 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
IlexPBDB
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.

Miocene — about 3 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 13 of 16 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.9–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.8–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–7.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.7–7.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.1–6.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.6–6.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.0–5.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.5–4.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.9–4.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.4–3.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.8–3.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences3.3–2.7 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.7–2.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.2–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–549 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences549 ka–0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11.63 Mya3.6 Mya16.5 Mya0 Mya

16 occurrences of Ilex aquifolium 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

16 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.

Found in

1 formation

Santa Maria di Ciciliano — 42.65°N, 12.49°E

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The named rock units Ilex aquifolium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ilex aquifolium and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Ilex aquifolium and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

119 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Ilex aquifolium, 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 16 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 content1

Picture of Ilex aquifolium

Credit
Jürgen Howaldt
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0 de
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ilex aquifolium 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 itIlex through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

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