Parataxodium

Parataxodium is an extinct genus of conifer that belonged to the subfamily Taxodioideae, a group included within cypress family. It is known primarily from fossilized remains dated to the Late Cretaceous period and is considered morphologically intermediate between modern genera such as Taxodium and Metasequoia. One species is known, Parataxodium wigginsii. Although it belongs to the swamp cypress family, it inhabited a much wider range of environments, including the cooler regions of Alaska. Although most fossils come from the Cretaceous, specimens are also known from both the Jurassic and the Paleogene.

Parataxodium

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
TaxodiaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 85 million years on record.

The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 57.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 56 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 5 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 5 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 5 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 5 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 5 occurrences164–160 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences160–156 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–153 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences153–149 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences149–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–142 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences116–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences112–109 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences109–105 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–69 Mya — about 1 occurrence69–65 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence143.1 Mya57.5 Mya164 Mya54 Mya

5 occurrences of Parataxodium on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

5 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

5 formations

Fort Union — 46.91°N, 101.44°WShahuozi — 44.20°N, 126.00°EKukpowruk — 69.00°N, 162.89°WFrenchman — 49.52°N, 108.82°WHell Creek — 45.89°N, 104.55°W

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The named rock units Parataxodium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Parataxodium and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Parataxodium and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

122 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Parataxodium, 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

5 references

Each of the 5 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 Parataxodium

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Parataxodium was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource 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 itTaxodiaceae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Arnold and Lowther 1955