Melinae

Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by their ancestral relationships: Musteloidea contains several families, only two of which include badgers; moreover, both of these families also include various other animals that are not badgers.

Melinae

Charles J. Sharp · 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
badgerPBDB
Sits inside
MustelidaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mustelidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 16.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 14 of 108 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 8 of 108 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 81 of 108 occurrencesPleistocene21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 1 occurrence10–9.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence9.6–8.9 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences8.9–8.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence8.2–7.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.5–6.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.8–6.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.2–5.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.5–4.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.8–4.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.1–3.4 Mya — about 3 occurrences3.4–2.7 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.7–2.0 Mya — about 9 occurrences2.0–1.4 Mya — about 10 occurrences1.4–683 ka Mya — about 13 occurrences683 ka–0 Mya — about 53 occurrences16.9 Mya11.7 ka20.5 Mya0 Mya

108 occurrences of Melinae 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

108 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

15 formations

Edelény — 48.39°N, 20.64°EBatesland — 43.13°N, 101.87°WTunggur — 43.41°N, 113.12°EGerakarou — 40.68°N, 23.15°EPlatanochori — 40.57°N, 23.47°ELishi — 34.17°N, 109.25°EXianshuihe — 43.65°N, 112.66°EUnterer Travertin — 50.97°N, 11.35°EGuadix — 37.42°N, 3.17°WZanda — 31.48°N, 79.80°ELefkon — 41.17°N, 23.50°ELithostratigraphic Unit B — 39.42°N, 22.65°EMytilinii — 37.75°N, 26.89°EPikermi — 38.00°N, 23.95°EGuxiangtun — 45.92°N, 127.40°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Melinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 92 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Melinae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Melinae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,494 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 106 sites for Melinae, 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

80 references

Each of the 108 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. 68 further references are 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 content1

Picture of Melinae

Credit
Charles J. Sharp
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Melinae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itMustelidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Burmeister 1872