Talpa caeca
The blind mole, also known as the Mediterranean mole, is a mole found in the Mediterranean region. It is similar to the European mole, differing most prominently in having eyes covered with skin. It is found in Albania, France, Greece, Italy, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Turkey. It is typically carnivorous in nature. Individuals can grow up to 12 cm (4.5 in) in length.
Emőke Dénes · 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
- blind molePBDB
- Sits inside
- TalpaPBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Talpidae
- Life habit
- fossorialPBDB, for Talpa
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 5.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
11 occurrences of Talpa caeca 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
11 occurrences- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene95%
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.
Talpa caeca and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Talpa caeca and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
135 taxa- Apodemus sylvaticus9 sites
- Pliomys8 sites
- Talpa europaea8 sites
- Microtus7 sites
- Cricetus cricetus6 sites
- Microtus agrestis6 sites
- Mimomys6 sites
- Lepus5 sites
- Microtus arvalis5 sites
- Apodemus4 sites
- Arvicola4 sites
- Beremendia fissidens4 sites
- Crocidura4 sites
- Crocidura russula4 sites
- Episoriculus4 sites
- Glis glis4 sites
- Meles meles4 sites
- Myodes4 sites
- Sorex4 sites
- Sorex runtonensis4 sites
- Sus scrofa4 sites
- Ursus arctos4 sites
- Allocricetus3 sites
- Allophaiomys3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Talpa caeca, 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-Orientale7
- Principaux gisements paleontologiques Francais du Pleistocene Moyen: Essai de classification3
- Montousse 5 (Hautes Pyrenees), un nouveau remplissage de fissure a faune de vertebres du Pleistocene Inferieur1
Each of the 11 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 Talpa caeca
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Emőke Dénes
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Blind mole”
- 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 itTalpa through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Savi 1822