Bessoecetor

Fox, M., 2013 · CC0 · via Wikidata/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
- PantolestidaePBDB
- Diet
- piscivore, durophagePBDB, for Pantolestidae
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Pantolestidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Pantolestidae
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 60.9 Mya to 59.24 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 63.4 Mya to 56 Mya.
36 occurrences of Bessoecetor 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
36 occurrences- Paleocene100%
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
8 formations
- Fort Union Formation14
- Paskapoo Formation11
- Ravenscrag Formation3
- Porcupine Hills Formation2
- "Fort Union" (= Lebo) Formation1
- Wasatch Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Bessoecetor has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Bessoecetor and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Bessoecetor and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
387 taxa- Ignacius frugivorus14 sites
- Ptilodus13 sites
- Neoplagiaulax hunteri12 sites
- Mesodma pygmaea11 sites
- Neoplagiaulax11 sites
- Elpidophorus elegans10 sites
- Carpodaptes hazelae9 sites
- Leptacodon tener9 sites
- Anconodon cochranensis8 sites
- Ectocion collinus8 sites
- Mimetodon silberlingi8 sites
- Neoplagiaulax hazeni8 sites
- Promioclaenus acolytus8 sites
- Thryptacodon australis8 sites
- Arctocyon corrugatus7 sites
- Bryanictis microlestes7 sites
- Ectypodus powelli7 sites
- Leptacodon munusculum7 sites
- Pararyctes pattersoni7 sites
- Ptilodus kummae7 sites
- Dissacus6 sites
- Ectocion cedrus6 sites
- Litocherus lacunatus6 sites
- Litocherus notissimus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Bessoecetor, 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
10 references- New earliest Tiffanian (late Paleocene) mammals from Cochrane 2, southwestern Alberta, Canada23
- The Tiffanian Land-Mammal Age (middle and late Paleocene) in the northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming3
- First mammals from the Paleocene Porcupine Hills Formation of southwestern Alberta, Canada2
- Late Torrejonian (middle Paleocene) mammals from south central Alberta, Canada2
- A new middle Paleocene (early Tiffanian) mammalian fauna from the Overland Member of the Fort Union Formation, Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, U.S.A.1
- New late Paleocene (late middle Tiffanian) mammals from the Roche Percée local fauna, south-eastern Saskatchewan, Canada1
- New Records of Eutherian Mammals from the Goler Formation (Tiffanian, Paleocene) of California and Their Biostratigraphic and Paleobiogeographic Implications1
- New pantolestids (Mammalia, Eutheria) from the late Paleocene (late middle Tiffanian) Roche Percée local fauna, southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada1
- Eudaemonema webbi sp. nov. (Mammalia, Mixodectidae) from the late Paleocene of western Canada: the youngest known mixodectid1
- Horolodectes sunae, an enigmatic mammal from the late Paleocene of Alberta, Canada1
Each of the 36 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 Bessoecetor
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Fox, M., 2013
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bessoecetor was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPantolestidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Simpson 1936