Eocardia

Eocardia is an extinct genus of rodent from the Early to Middle Miocene of Argentina and Chile, South America. The 30 centimetres (12 in) long creature was related to guinea pigs and the capybara.

Eocardia

R. Bruce Horsfall · Public Domain · 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
CavioideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 800 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 15.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Miocene — about 35 of 35 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 4 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 7 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 7 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 7 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.6 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 occurrences16.3 Mya – 15.5 Mya20.9 Mya11.1 Mya

35 occurrences of Eocardia 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

35 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

7 formations

Santa Cruz — 51.02°S, 69.15°WSanta Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.12°WSanta Cruz — 51.05°S, 69.13°WSanta Cruz — 50.75°S, 69.18°WSanta Cruz — 51.33°S, 69.02°WSanta Cruz — 51.35°S, 69.00°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.22°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.28°WSanta Cruz — 50.16°S, 69.68°WSanta Cruz — 50.05°S, 70.44°WGalera — 46.90°S, 72.30°WCollón Cura — 40.09°S, 70.84°WCollón Cura — 42.65°S, 69.70°WChinches — 31.99°S, 69.78°WCollón Curá — 41.30°S, 69.58°WCollon Cura — 40.43°S, 70.67°WCerro Boleadoras — 47.00°S, 71.62°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Eocardia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Eocardia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Eocardia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

193 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Eocardia, 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

12 references

Each of the 35 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 content1

Picture of Eocardia

Credit
R. Bruce Horsfall
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Eocardia 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 itCavioidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1887