Microgale
Microgale is a genus of mammal in the family Tenrecidae. There are 21 living species on the island of Madagascar and one extinct species known from a fossil. Some species have been discovered in the last twenty years.
Ubs6u!d-pongsakorn · 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
- shrew tenrecPBDB
- Sits inside
- TenrecidaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Tenrecidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Tenrecidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
10 occurrences of Microgale on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
10 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Microgale and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Microgale and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
114 taxa- Cheirogaleus medius4 sites
- Mus musculus4 sites
- Tenrec ecaudatus4 sites
- Archaeolemur edwardsi3 sites
- Coua cristata3 sites
- Cryptoprocta ferox3 sites
- Eliurus3 sites
- Miniopterus3 sites
- Numida meleagris3 sites
- Setifer setosus3 sites
- Triaenops3 sites
- Accipiter madagascariensis2 sites
- Aldabrachelys2 sites
- Archaeolemur majori2 sites
- Avahi cleesei2 sites
- Babakotia radofilai2 sites
- Bos indicus2 sites
- Buteo2 sites
- Canis familiaris2 sites
- Capra aegagrus2 sites
- cf. Boophinae indet.2 sites
- Chaerephon leucogastert2 sites
- Coracopsis nigra2 sites
- Coua2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Microgale, 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
2 references- New findings at Andrahomana Cave, southeastern Madagascar6
- Subfossil lemur discoveries from the Beanka Protected Area in western Madagascar4
Each of the 10 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 content2
Picture of Microgale
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ubs6u!d-pongsakorn
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Microgale brevicaudata · amnh:mammals:275243
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, “Microgale”
- 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 itTenrecidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thomas 1882