Diatryma

User:Postdlf · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- DiatrymidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 51.1 Mya to 48.07 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 41.03 Mya.
15 occurrences of Diatryma 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
15 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Diatryma 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.
Diatryma and its relatives
EoceneWhere Diatryma and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
89 taxa- Allognathosuchus4 sites
- Cantius mckennai4 sites
- Coryphodon eocaenus4 sites
- Sifrhippus grangeri4 sites
- Arenahippus aemulor3 sites
- Diacodexis metsiacus3 sites
- Esthonyx spatularius3 sites
- Haplomylus speirianus3 sites
- Hyopsodus loomisi3 sites
- Phenacodus vortmani3 sites
- Arfia shoshoniensis2 sites
- Asiatosuchus germanicus2 sites
- Cardiolophus radinskyi2 sites
- Copecion brachypternus2 sites
- Diacodexis2 sites
- Ectocion osbornianus2 sites
- Eurohippus parvulus2 sites
- Geochelone2 sites
- Geoemyda ptychogastroides2 sites
- Homogalax protapirinus2 sites
- Hyrachyus2 sites
- Lacertilia2 sites
- Lophiodon remensis2 sites
- Oxyaena gulo2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Diatryma, 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
5 references- Biomechanics of the jaw apparatus of the gigantic Eocene bird Diatryma: implications for diet and mode of life7
- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the McCullough Peaks, northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming: Implications for biochronology, basin development, and community reorganization across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary4
- Zur Stellung der Wirbeltierfauna des Geiseltals, insbesondere der Mammalier, im europäischen Mitteleozän (Position of the European Middle Eocene vertebrate fauna of the Geisel Valley, with special focus on mammals)2
- Omorhamphus, a new flightless bird from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming1
- The skeleton of Diatryma, a gigantic bird from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming1
Each of the 15 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 content3

Picture of Diatryma
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- User:Postdlf
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Diatryma gigantea · amnh:farb:6169
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itDiatrymidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1876