Palaeocarpinus

Palaeocarpinus is an extinct genus of plants placed in the Betulaceae subfamily Coryloideae. The genus had a wide spread circumboreal distribution, with species found in North America, Europe, and Asia. The first appearance dates to the Early Paleocene and species are spread through the Paleocene and Eocene with the youngest species occurring at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. A total of thirteen species have been named with a small grouping of referred specimens that have not been redescribed in the modern literature. Three species have been named from Asia, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. The type species and the first described species are both from Europe, being named in 1981 and 1859, though a North American species is reported in Northern Europe as well. North America has the largest diversity of the genus, with two groups of species known and several outliers. The first species was reported from the Okanagan Highlands in Canada and two additional species were named from the Highlands in 2003. A series of species is known from sites across the Great Plains-Rocky Mountains, with species named in 1992, 1996, 2004, and 2021. An additional species was described in 2021 from Oregon, and an undescribed fossil was reported from the Yukon but subsequently lost in transport. The first two species to be described were placed into several unrelated genera or into a form taxon for fruits before being moved into the genus. Palaeocarpinus is now placed basally into Coryloideae, with an unresolved relationship to the two modern coryloid tribes Coryleae and Carpinieae. The Palaeocarpinus plant was likely wind pollinated as with other Betulaceae species, while the fruits were possibly being wind or animal dispersed at maturity.

Palaeocarpinus

Kevmin · 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
CoryloideaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 1.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 57.5 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 30 occurrencesPaleocene — about 28 of 30 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 2 of 30 occurrencesEocene67–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 2 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 2 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 6 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 7 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 5 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences57.5 Mya – 56 Mya66.5 Mya47.6 Mya

30 occurrences of Palaeocarpinus on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

30 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

2 formations

Fort Union — 46.91°N, 101.44°WFort Union — 42.00°N, 108.00°WFort Union — 42.28°N, 108.11°WFort Union — 41.16°N, 108.92°WFort Union — 41.14°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 41.46°N, 108.70°WFort Union — 41.56°N, 108.58°WFort Union — 47.13°N, 107.52°WAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.57°W

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The named rock units Palaeocarpinus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeocarpinus and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Palaeocarpinus and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

170 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Palaeocarpinus, 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

6 references

Each of the 30 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 Palaeocarpinus

Credit
Kevmin
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Palaeocarpinus 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 itCoryloideae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Crane 1981