Caenolophus
Caenolophus is an extinct genus of primitive amynodont that lived in East Asia during the Middle to Late Eocene. Although Caenolophus is known only from jaw fragments, it is believed to have been anatomically intermediate between more derived amynodonts and primitive rhinocerotoids. Several species of Caenolophus have been named, with fossils found in both northern and southern China, and in North Korea.

William Diller Matthew (1871–1930) & Walter W. Granger (1872–1941) · 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
- RhinocerotoideaPBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Ceratomorpha
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Ceratomorpha
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 33 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 23.04 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
18 occurrences of Caenolophus 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
18 occurrencesThese 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
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The named rock units Caenolophus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Caenolophus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Caenolophus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
95 taxa- Colodon3 sites
- Deperetella3 sites
- Hyracodontidae3 sites
- Lophialetes3 sites
- Bahinolophus birmanicus2 sites
- Breviodon2 sites
- Brontotheriidae2 sites
- Eudinoceras2 sites
- Harpagolestes koreanicus2 sites
- Hyaenodon2 sites
- Plesiocolopirus grangeri2 sites
- Protitan2 sites
- Protitanotherium2 sites
- Rhodopagus minimus2 sites
- Sharamynodon mongoliensis2 sites
- Triplopus2 sites
- ? Styliondon sp.1 site
- Acer1 site
- Adapidium huanghoense1 site
- Amynodontidae1 site
- Anthracokeryx sinensis1 site
- Anthracosenex ambiguus1 site
- Anthracotherium1 site
- Archaeomeryx optatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Caenolophus, 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
9 references- An early Tertiary vertebrate fauna from Yuanchü5
- Late Eocene Mammalian Fauna of Huangzhuang, Qufu, Shandong4
- New mammals from the Shara Murun Eocene of Mongolia3
- A new species of Lophiomeryx from the Eocene of Bujiamiaozi (Ningxia, China) and implications for the early evolution of the family Lophiomerycidae1
- New Gobiolagus (Mammalia: Lagomorpha) material from the Middle Eocene of Erden Obo (Nei Mongol, China)1
- Late Eocene mammalian faunas of Honan and Shansi with notes on some vertebrate fossils collected therefrom1
- On Cenozoic vertebrates in Korea1
- Eocene mammals found from the Hosan coal-field, Tyosen1
- Two new perissodactyls from the Arshanto Eocene of Mongolia1
Each of the 18 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 Caenolophus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- William Diller Matthew (1871–1930) & Walter W. Granger (1872–1941)
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Caenolophus 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.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Caenolophus”
- 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 itRhinocerotoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthew and Granger 1925