Mikrotia
Mikrotia is an extinct rodent belonging to the Muridae. It lived during the upper Miocene and its fossil remains have been found in Italy (Gargano). The type species is M. magna, although two other species are also known.
Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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- Sits inside
- MuridaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, insectivorePBDB, for Muridae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Muridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 6.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 5.09 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
62 occurrences of Mikrotia on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
62 occurrencesThese 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.
Mikrotia and its relatives
MioceneWhere Mikrotia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
21 taxa- Apodemus26 sites
- Lagomorpha26 sites
- Deinogalerix intermedius14 sites
- Solitudo11 sites
- Deinogalerix minor6 sites
- Palaeortyx volans3 sites
- Deinogalerix freudenthali2 sites
- Aves1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Crocodylus1 site
- Deinogalerix brevirostris1 site
- Deinogalerix koenigswaldi1 site
- Galericinae1 site
- Hattomys beetsi1 site
- Hattomys gargantua1 site
- Megacricetodon1 site
- Microtia magna1 site
- Microtia maiuscula1 site
- Microtia parva1 site
- Paralutra garganensis1 site
- Stertomys1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Mikrotia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Rodent stratigraphy of some Miocene fissure fillings in Gargano (prov. Foggia, Italy)61
- Why are there no giants at the dwarves feet? Insular micromammals in the eastern Mediterranean1
Each of the 62 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 Mikrotia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ghedoghedo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Mikrotia 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Mikrotia”
- 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 itMuridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Freudenthal 2006