Cryptoprocta

Cryptoprocta is a genus of carnivoran endemic to Madagascar. It contains the living fossa and its two larger, recently extinct relatives, Cryptoprocta spelea and Cryptoprocta bevatabe. The fossa is the largest of Madagascar's mammalian carnivores; the extant fossa is a generalist carnivore, capable of hunting even the largest living lemurs. The two extinct species are thought to have hunted the extinct lemurs that once inhabited the island, both of which were larger than the extant species.

Cryptoprocta

Uncredited · 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
Also called
fossaPBDB
Sits inside
EupleridaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Carnivora
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Carnivora
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesHolocene — about 6 of 6 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

6 occurrences of Cryptoprocta on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

6 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.

Cryptoprocta and its relatives

Holocene

Where Cryptoprocta and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

76 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Cryptoprocta, 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

3 references

Each of the 6 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 content2

Picture of Cryptoprocta

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Cryptoprocta ferox · dpc:6832

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 itEupleridae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bennett 1833