Rupicapra rupicapra
The chamois, or Alpine chamois, is a species of goat-antelope native to mountainous parts of Europe and Western Asia, from the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian Mountain Range, the Alps, the Apennines, the Dinarides, the Tatra to the Carpathian Mountains, the Balkan Mountains, the Rila–Rhodope massif, Pindus, the northeastern mountains of Turkey, and the Caucasus. It has also been introduced to the South Island of New Zealand. Some subspecies of chamois are strictly protected in the EU under the European Habitats Directive.

Giles Laurent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- chamoisPBDB
- Sits inside
- RupicapraPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Bovidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Rupicapra rupicapra 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene98%
- Holocene2%
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.
Rupicapra rupicapra and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Rupicapra rupicapra and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
74 taxa- Capra ibex5 sites
- Bos primigenius4 sites
- Canis lupus4 sites
- Capreolus capreolus4 sites
- Sus scrofa4 sites
- Canis3 sites
- Cervus3 sites
- Dama dama3 sites
- Equus3 sites
- Martes martes3 sites
- Ursus arctos3 sites
- Vulpes3 sites
- Vulpes vulpes3 sites
- Alces alces2 sites
- Arvicola2 sites
- Aves2 sites
- Bos2 sites
- Bovidae2 sites
- Capra2 sites
- Cervus elaphus2 sites
- Dinaromys2 sites
- Felis2 sites
- Glis glis2 sites
- Lepus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Rupicapra rupicapra, 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
3 references- I giacimenti Quaternari di vertebrati fossili nell'Italia Nord-Orientale3
- Intensification of small game resources at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece) from the Middle Paleolithic to Mesolithic1
- Asprochaliko and Kastritsa: Further Investigations of Palaeolithic Settlement and Economy in Epirus (North-West Greece)1
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 content2
Picture of Rupicapra rupicapra
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Giles Laurent
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Chamois”
- 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 itRupicapra through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)