Tribulus
Tribulus is a genus of plants in the family Zygophyllaceae and found in diverse climates and soils worldwide from latitudes 35°S to 47°N. The best-known member is T. terrestris, a widespread invasive species and weed.
Uncredited · 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
- puncture vinePBDB
- Sits inside
- ZygophyllaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
7 occurrences of Tribulus 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
7 occurrences- Pliocene9%
- Pleistocene77%
- Holocene14%
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
- Olduvai Formation · Vogel River Series Group4
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The named rock units Tribulus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tribulus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tribulus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
213 taxa- Asteraceae7 sites
- Cyperaceae7 sites
- Poaceae7 sites
- Acacia5 sites
- Artemisia5 sites
- Justicia5 sites
- Apiaceae4 sites
- Juniperus4 sites
- Plantago4 sites
- Podocarpus4 sites
- Rhus4 sites
- Typha4 sites
- Urticaceae4 sites
- Acanthaceae3 sites
- Cerealia3 sites
- Chenopodiaceae3 sites
- Commiphora3 sites
- Dodonaea3 sites
- Euphorbia3 sites
- Grewia3 sites
- Hagenia3 sites
- Myrtaceae3 sites
- Olea3 sites
- Papilionoideae indet.3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Tribulus, 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
4 references- A Catalogue of Fossil Plants from India Part 6: Cenozoic (Quaternary) Palynology and Palaeobotany3
- Geology of the Olduvai Gorge2
- Olduvai Gorge, Parts I-Iv: The Skulls, Endocasts, and Teeth of Homo Habilis1
- Olduvai Gorge; a case study in the interpretation of hominid paleoenvironments in East Africa1
Each of the 7 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 Tribulus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Tribulus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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, “Tribulus”
- 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 itZygophyllaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753