Ekaltadeta ima

Ekaltadeta is an extinct genus of marsupials related to the modern musky rat-kangaroos. Ekaltadeta was present in what is today the Riversleigh formations in Northern Queensland from the Late Oligocene to the Miocene, and the genus includes two species. The genus is hypothesized to have been either exclusively carnivorous, or omnivorous with a fondness for meat, based on the chewing teeth found in fossils. This conclusion is based mainly on the size and shape of a large buzz-saw-shaped cheek-tooth, the adult third premolar, which is common to all Ekaltadeta.

Ekaltadeta ima

SeismicShrimp · CC BY 4.0 · 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
EkaltadetaPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Marsupialia
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At most 8.8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 15.98 Mya and 7.246 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesMiocene16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–10.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10.0–9.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.7–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–9.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.0–8.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.7–8.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.4–8.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.0–7.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.7–7.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.4–7.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16.5 Mya6.7 Mya

2 occurrences of Ekaltadeta ima on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

2 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.

Ekaltadeta ima and its relatives

Miocene

Where Ekaltadeta ima and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Ekaltadeta ima, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ekaltadeta ima

Credit
SeismicShrimp
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ekaltadeta ima 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

What may have been alongside itEkaltadeta through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Archer and Flannery 1985