Pteromys
Commonly referred to as the Old World flying squirrels, the genus Pteromys is distributed across temperate Eurasia, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Although there are a host of flying squirrel genera in Asia, Pteromys is the only one present in Europe.

Takashi Hososhima from Tokyo, Japan · CC BY-SA 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- Also called
- Eurasian flying squirrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- PteromyinaePBDB
- Diet
- granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Sciuridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
2 occurrences of Pteromys 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
2 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Pteromys and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Pteromys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
94 taxa- Apodemus2 sites
- Crocidura2 sites
- Myotis2 sites
- Ailuropoda wulingshanensis1 site
- Anourosorex1 site
- Arctonyx collaris1 site
- Aselliscus1 site
- Atherurus1 site
- Belomys1 site
- Blarinella1 site
- Bos (Bibos)1 site
- Callorhinus ursinus1 site
- Canis lupus1 site
- Caprinae1 site
- Cervavitus fenqii1 site
- Cervus1 site
- Cetacea1 site
- Chiropodomys1 site
- Cuon1 site
- Dremomys1 site
- Dymecodon pilirostris1 site
- Eothenomys1 site
- Erictis sp.1 site
- Eumetopias jubatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Pteromys, 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
2 references- A newly discovered Gigantopithecus fauna from Sanhe Cave, Chongzuo, Guangxi, South China1
- Quaternary vertebrates from Shiriya area, Shimokita Pininsula, northeastern Japan1
Each of the 2 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 Pteromys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Takashi Hososhima from Tokyo, Japan
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pteromys 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 itPteromyinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1800