Agnotocastor

Agnotocastor is an extinct member of the beaver family Castoridae. Unlike its modern relative, this species took the place of muskrats in the rivers of North America during the Oligocene epoch. The earliest species is A. galushai, which is also the first reliable member of the Castoridae. It is known chiefly from North America, with a single record from Central Asia.

Agnotocastor

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
CastoridaePBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Castoridae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Castoridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 6.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 27.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 18.5 Mya.

Eocene — about 4 of 24 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 18 of 24 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 24 occurrencesMiocene38–37 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–33 Mya — about 2 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 2 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 2 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 2 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33.9 Mya27.3 Mya37.5 Mya18 Mya

24 occurrences of Agnotocastor on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

24 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

9 formations

Brule — 40.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 46.90°N, 102.80°WBrule — 41.80°N, 103.80°WBrule — 42.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 43.50°N, 101.90°WBrule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.76°N, 101.93°WChadron — 42.40°N, 103.80°WWhite River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WSage Creek — 45.00°N, 112.80°WArcadia — 27.90°N, 82.10°WRenova — 46.40°N, 112.80°WSharps — 43.30°N, 102.50°WAral — 46.80°N, 60.58°ECypress Hills — 49.80°N, 109.00°W

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The named rock units Agnotocastor has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Agnotocastor and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Agnotocastor and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

417 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Agnotocastor, 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

22 references

Each of the 24 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. 10 further references are not listed. 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 Agnotocastor

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Agnotocastor 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 itCastoridae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stirton 1935