Achaenodon

Achaenodon is an extinct artiodactyl mammal belonging to the family Helohyidae. It lived in the mid-late Eocene and its fossil remains have been found in North America.

Achaenodon

R. Bruce Horsfall · Public Domain · 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
Sits inside
HelohyidaePBDB
Diet
grazer, browserPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 48.07 Mya and 37.71 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 17 of 17 occurrencesEocene48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–44 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–44 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–44 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–43 Mya — about 1 occurrence43–43 Mya — about 1 occurrence43–43 Mya — about 1 occurrence43–42 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–42 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–40 Mya — about 1 occurrence40–40 Mya — about 1 occurrence40–39 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48.6 Mya37.2 Mya

17 occurrences of Achaenodon on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

17 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

5 formations

Uinta — 40.20°N, 109.90°WFriars — 32.90°N, 117.10°WTepee Trail — 43.70°N, 108.70°WTepee Trail — 43.20°N, 108.20°WWashakie — 41.70°N, 109.00°WClarno — 44.93°N, 120.42°W

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

Achaenodon and its relatives

Eocene

Where Achaenodon and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

168 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Achaenodon, 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

8 references

Each of the 17 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 Achaenodon

Credit
R. Bruce Horsfall
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Achaenodon 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

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 itHelohyidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1873