Cynomys

Prairie dogs are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. There are five recognized species of prairie dog: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, prairie dogs are found primarily in the northern states, which lie at the southern end of the Great Plains: northeastern Sonora, north and northeastern Chihuahua, northern Coahuila, northern Nuevo León, and northern Tamaulipas. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, though they have also been introduced in a few eastern locales. They are also found in the Canadian Prairies. Despite the name, they are not actually canines; prairie dogs, along with the marmots, chipmunks, and several other basal genera belong to the ground squirrels, part of the larger squirrel family (Sciuridae).

Cynomys

Joe Ravi · 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
Also called
prairie dogPBDB
Sits inside
MarmotiniPBDB
Diet
granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
Life habit
semifossorialPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 88 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 88 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 85 of 88 occurrencesPleistocene17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.0–4.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.5–3.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.9–3.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.4–2.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.8–2.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.2–1.7 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences1.7–1.1 Mya — about 13 occurrences1.1–560 ka Mya — about 25 occurrences560 ka–0 Mya — about 46 occurrences12.5 Mya129 ka16.8 Mya0 Mya

88 occurrences of Cynomys on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

88 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

14 formations

Kingsdown — 37.04°N, 100.50°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°WSeymour — 33.80°N, 99.70°WSeymour — 33.75°N, 99.50°WTule — 34.50°N, 101.70°WTule — 34.50°N, 101.30°WGood Creek — 34.00°N, 99.80°WSappa — 39.80°N, 98.10°WSappa — 40.20°N, 99.40°WMadison Valley — 45.93°N, 111.29°WBelleville — 39.90°N, 97.70°WAlamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WLoveland Loess — 40.50°N, 98.10°WCrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WFloral — 52.20°N, 106.70°WBeaumont — 29.66°N, 94.09°W

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The named rock units Cynomys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 64 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cynomys and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Cynomys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

583 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 80 sites for Cynomys, 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

38 references

Each of the 88 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. 26 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 content3

Picture of Cynomys

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

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Cynomys ludovicianus · amnh:mammals:114522

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itMarmotini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1817