Arctocyon

Arctocyon is an extinct genus of large placental mammals, part of the possibly polyphyletic family Arctocyonidae. The type species is A. primaevus, though up to five other species may be known. Fossils of Arctocyon have been found in Europe and North America. Arctocyon was originally named as a subgenus of the bear-dog Amphicyon, though was subsequently found to belong to a genus and family of its own. The relationship between arctocyonids and other placentals is unclear, with early classification efforts placing them as carnivores or creodonts, and later ones classifying them under Condylarthra, a wastebasket taxon for various early ungulates. More recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that arctocyonids are an artificial assemblage of several distantly-related placental lineages, and Arctocyon may be closely related to Loxolophus and to pantodonts.

Arctocyon

Dmitry Bogdanov · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Sits inside
ArctocyonidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Arctocyonidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Arctocyonidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 5.9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 63.4 Mya to 57.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 56 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 95 occurrencesPaleocene — about 95 of 95 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 95 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 4 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 4 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 4 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 4 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 5 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 6 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 6 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 6 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 6 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 7 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 7 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 7 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 7 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 5 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 2 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 2 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 1 occurrence63.4 Mya57.5 Mya66.5 Mya55.5 Mya

95 occurrences of Arctocyon on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

95 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

13 formations

Fort Union — 41.30°N, 107.74°WFort Union — 43.85°N, 108.35°WFort Union — 45.80°N, 109.80°WFort Union — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFort Union — 41.70°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 46.90°N, 101.50°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.38°WFort Union — 44.91°N, 108.93°WFort Union — 43.45°N, 109.16°WFort Union — 39.27°N, 108.18°WFort Union — 44.30°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.66°N, 108.30°WFort Union — 44.73°N, 108.56°WFort Union — 44.70°N, 108.46°WFort Union — 44.53°N, 108.96°WFort Union — 44.88°N, 109.12°WFort Union — 44.85°N, 108.78°WFort Union — 44.91°N, 109.01°WFort Union — 44.96°N, 109.01°WFort Union — 44.85°N, 108.89°WNacimiento — 36.30°N, 108.20°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WNacimiento — 36.18°N, 107.58°WNacimiento — 36.20°N, 107.78°WNacimiento — 36.07°N, 107.97°WNacimiento — 36.35°N, 108.10°WHanna — 41.80°N, 107.00°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.77°WPaskapoo — 54.80°N, 115.46°WPaskapoo — 53.23°N, 114.70°W"Fort Union No. 3" (= Melville) — 45.80°N, 109.80°W"Fort Union" (= Lebo) — 46.20°N, 109.90°W"Fort Union" (= Lebo) — 45.80°N, 109.80°WPorcupine Hills — 51.00°N, 114.10°WPorcupine Hills — 51.10°N, 114.28°WRavenscrag — 49.06°N, 102.75°WBlack Peaks — 29.20°N, 103.20°WEvanston — 41.80°N, 110.70°WMelville — 45.80°N, 109.80°WWasatch — 41.27°N, 110.33°WLower Variegated Sequence — 43.90°N, 110.80°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Arctocyon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Arctocyon and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Arctocyon and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

595 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Arctocyon, 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

23 references

Each of the 95 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. 11 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 content2

Picture of Arctocyon

Credit
Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Arctocyon ferox · AMNH:FM:16543

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 itArctocyonidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blainville 1841