Roystonea palaea

Roystonea palaea is an extinct species of palm known from fossil flowers found in the early Miocene Burdigalian stage Dominican amber deposits on the island of Hispaniola. The species is known from a single staminate flower and a single pistillate flower both preserved in the same piece of amber. The amber specimen bearing the holotype and paratype is currently deposited in the collections of the Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, as number "Sd–9–101", where it was studied and described by George Poinar. Poinar published his 2002 type description for R. palaea in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 139. The species' second name is taken from the Greek word palaios meaning "ancient". The amber specimen bearing the flowers was excavated from the La Toca mine northeast of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

No picture of Roystonea palaea was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none. iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Roystonea palaea firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
RoystoneaPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 6.7 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 13.82 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Miocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya13.3 Mya

1 occurrence of Roystonea palaea on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

1 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

1 formation

El Mamey — 19.45°N, 70.70°W

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

Roystonea palaea and its relatives

Miocene

Where Roystonea palaea and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

7 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Roystonea palaea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Roystonea palaea was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none.

iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Roystonea palaea firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

No 3D scan of Roystonea palaea 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 itRoystonea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Poinar 2002