Dinictis

Dinictis is a genus of the Nimravidae, an extinct family of feliform mammalian carnivores, also known as "false saber-toothed cats". Assigned to the subfamily Nimravinae, Dinictis was endemic to North America from the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene epochs, existing for about 6.2 million years. Including supplementary materials

Dinictis

Daderot · CC0 · 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
NimravidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Nimravidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 4.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 29.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 24.7 Mya.

Eocene — about 11 of 31 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 20 of 31 occurrencesOligocene37–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 3 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 3 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 3 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 3 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 3 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33.9 Mya29.5 Mya37.5 Mya24.2 Mya

31 occurrences of Dinictis on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

31 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

6 formations

Brule — 40.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 42.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 46.90°N, 102.80°WBrule — 43.90°N, 102.40°WBrule — 43.60°N, 102.45°WBrule — 43.85°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.20°N, 103.20°WWhite River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WWhite River — 40.80°N, 103.10°WChadron — 42.80°N, 103.10°WChadron — 43.30°N, 102.50°WCypress Hills — 49.57°N, 109.88°WRenova — 46.00°N, 112.00°WJohn Day — 44.67°N, 119.63°W

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The named rock units Dinictis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dinictis and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Dinictis and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

331 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Dinictis, 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

16 references

Each of the 31 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. 4 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 Dinictis

Credit
Daderot
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Dinictis sp. · LACM:162986

3D model

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

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itNimravidae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leidy 1854