Myrcia

Myrcia is a genus of plants in the family Myrtaceae, containing about 794 species as of 2025. They are distributed in Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, with centers of diversity in the Brazilian Cerrado and Atlantic Forests ecoregions. Myrcia was first described as a genus in 1827.

Myrcia

João Medeiros · CC BY 2.0 · 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
MyrtaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 78 million years on record.

The record covers at least 83.6 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 21 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 21 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 21 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 21 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 21 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 10 of 21 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 21 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 21 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences91–87 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences87–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–62 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences46–41 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–21 Mya — about 3 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–8.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences8.4–4.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.3–204 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences83.6 Mya5.333 Mya124 Mya204 ka

21 occurrences of Myrcia on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

21 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

6 formations

Mata Amarilla — 49.65°S, 71.22°WPirabas — 1.21°S, 47.16°WLigorio Márquez — 36.77°S, 71.83°WRio Guillermo — 51.25°S, 72.28°WAckerman — 34.66°N, 89.10°WRipley — 36.23°N, 88.20°W

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The named rock units Myrcia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Myrcia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Myrcia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

261 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Myrcia, 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

15 references

Each of the 21 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. 3 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 Myrcia

Credit
João Medeiros
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Myrcia 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 itMyrtaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. De Candolle 1828