Poaceae

Poaceae, also called Gramineae, is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as true grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. Poaceae is the most well-known family within the informal group known as grass.

Poaceae

Uncredited · 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
Also called
grassPBDB
Sits inside
PoalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 119 million years on record.

The record covers at least 119.57 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 143.1 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 0 of 490 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 490 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 490 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 5 of 490 occurrencesEocene — about 48 of 490 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 17 of 490 occurrencesMiocene — about 152 of 490 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 33 of 490 occurrencesPleistocene — about 188 of 490 occurrences146–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences141–136 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences136–131 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences131–127 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127–122 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences117–112 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences112–107 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences107–102 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences102–97 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences88–83 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 3 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 3 occurrences63–58 Mya — about 2 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 7 occurrences54–49 Mya — about 11 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 12 occurrences44–39 Mya — about 11 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 7 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 6 occurrences29–24 Mya — about 9 occurrences24–19 Mya — about 23 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 32 occurrences15–9.7 Mya — about 51 occurrences9.7–4.9 Mya — about 56 occurrences4.9–0 Mya — about 251 occurrences119.57 Mya11.7 ka146 Mya0 Mya

490 occurrences of Poaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

490 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

83 formations

Itahana — 36.25°N, 138.50°EItahana — 36.25°N, 139.00°EItahana — 36.50°N, 139.00°EItahana — 36.32°N, 138.85°EDeccan Intertrappean — 18.95°N, 72.80°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.01°N, 79.19°EDeccan Intertrappean — 21.01°N, 78.60°EYagii — 36.08°N, 139.17°ENgorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°ESan Fernando — 4.90°N, 73.02°WOgallala — 39.02°N, 99.52°WAreniscas de el Limbo — 4.90°N, 73.02°WChenque — 45.87°S, 67.58°WChenque — 45.30°S, 69.03°WOgawa — 36.50°N, 138.00°EOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°EOlduvai — 2.96°S, 35.31°EGatun — 9.27°N, 79.87°WGatun — 9.13°N, 79.95°WMonte León — 50.16°S, 68.41°WMonte León — 50.13°S, 68.40°WMonte León — 47.03°S, 66.80°WAsh Hollow — 42.30°N, 98.00°WDajie — 24.10°N, 101.22°EShengxian — 29.17°N, 121.24°EMirador — 7.70°N, 72.62°WCulebra — 9.03°N, 79.63°WChu Chua — 51.37°N, 120.15°WChu Chua — 51.36°N, 120.15°WNagaiwa — 36.00°N, 138.00°EChausuyama — 36.58°N, 138.17°ERenova — 45.20°N, 112.16°WRenova — 45.50°N, 112.50°WMaboko — 0.15°N, 34.62°EEifel — 50.10°N, 6.84°EChiquimil — 26.83°S, 66.00°W

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The named rock units Poaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 59 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 306 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Poaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Poaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,673 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 388 sites for Poaceae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

131 references

Each of the 490 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. 119 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 Poaceae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itPoales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Barnhart 1895