Dryolestoidea

Dryolestida is an extinct order of mammals, known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. They are considered basal members of the clade Cladotheria, close to the ancestry of therian mammals. It is also believed that they developed a fully mammalian jaw and also had the three middle ear bones. Most members of the group, as with most Mesozoic mammals, are only known from fragmentary tooth and jaw remains.

Dryolestoidea

P.Fernandes ( Trebaruna ) · CC BY 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
CladotheriaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 147 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 17.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 16.3 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 4 of 163 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 81 of 163 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 35 of 163 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 38 of 163 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 163 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 163 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 163 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 163 occurrences171–166 Mya — about 2 occurrences166–161 Mya — about 2 occurrences155–150 Mya — about 25 occurrences150–145 Mya — about 40 occurrences145–140 Mya — about 34 occurrences140–134 Mya — about 7 occurrences134–129 Mya — about 2 occurrences129–124 Mya — about 3 occurrences124–119 Mya — about 4 occurrences113–108 Mya — about 1 occurrence87–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–76 Mya — about 2 occurrences76–71 Mya — about 7 occurrences71–66 Mya — about 29 occurrences66–61 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences24–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences165.3 Mya17.5 Mya171 Mya13 Mya

163 occurrences of Dryolestoidea on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

163 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

28 formations

Morrison — 38.54°N, 105.22°WMorrison — 41.88°N, 105.89°WMorrison — 41.89°N, 106.00°WMorrison — 41.99°N, 106.08°WMorrison — 40.47°N, 109.18°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 38.99°N, 109.27°WMorrison — 44.46°N, 104.73°WMorrison — 44.02°N, 104.24°WLos Alamitos — 41.95°S, 66.33°WLulworth — 50.60°N, 1.97°WLulworth — 50.61°N, 1.95°WKsar Metlili — 32.70°N, 3.22°WAlcobaça — 39.70°N, 8.80°WLa Colonia — 43.00°S, 67.65°WLa Colonia — 43.11°S, 67.70°WLa Colonia — 43.01°S, 67.63°WLa Colonia — 42.96°S, 67.53°WAllen — 39.78°S, 66.70°WLourinhã — 39.22°N, 9.34°WEl Castellar — 40.67°N, 0.67°WEl Castellar — 40.66°N, 0.86°WChorrillo — 50.50°S, 72.56°WWadhurst Clay — 50.89°N, 0.69°EWadhurst Clay — 51.01°N, 0.76°ELakota — 43.32°N, 103.62°WLakota — 44.20°N, 103.33°WSanta Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.12°WSanta Cruz — 51.08°S, 69.13°WDorotea — 50.70°S, 72.53°WMesaverde — 44.12°N, 107.76°WForest Marble — 51.87°N, 1.27°WLa Huérguina — 40.22°N, 1.98°WItat — 55.65°N, 89.18°ECamarillas — 40.64°N, 0.86°WBalabansai — 41.34°N, 72.23°EEl Molino — 17.69°S, 65.94°WSalamanca — 45.50°S, 67.18°WBajo de La Carpa — 38.44°S, 68.73°WAnacleto — 39.12°S, 67.67°W

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The named rock units Dryolestoidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dryolestoidea and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Dryolestoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

825 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 64 sites for Dryolestoidea, 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

70 references

Each of the 163 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. 58 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 content1

Picture of Dryolestoidea

Credit
P.Fernandes ( Trebaruna )
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dryolestoidea was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Butler 1939)