Climacoceratidae

Climacoceratidae is a family of superficially deer-like artiodactyl ungulates which lived in the Miocene epoch in Africa. They are close to the ancestry of giraffes, with some genera, such as Prolibytherium, originally classified as giraffes, but later found to have been of entirely different families.

Climacoceratidae

Apokryltaros · 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
ArtiodactylaPBDB
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 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.04 Mya and 11.63 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesMiocene — about 10 of 10 occurrencesMiocene23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–15 Mya — about 1 occurrence15–15 Mya — about 1 occurrence15–14 Mya — about 1 occurrence14–14 Mya — about 1 occurrence14–14 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23.5 Mya11.1 Mya

10 occurrences of Climacoceratidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

10 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

Maboko — 0.15°S, 34.60°EMaboko — 0.17°N, 34.62°EMaboko — 0.15°N, 34.62°EMarada — 29.23°N, 19.20°EMoghara — 30.38°N, 28.82°EMaradah — 28.00°N, 20.50°EVihowa — 30.08°N, 70.33°E

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

Climacoceratidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Climacoceratidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

166 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Climacoceratidae, 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

Each of the 10 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 Climacoceratidae

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itArtiodactyla through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hamilton 1978