Eomellivora

Eomellivora is an extinct genus of prehistoric mustelids, closely related to the honey badger, known from Eurasia and North America, and tentatively Africa. It was one of the biggest mustelids ever known, bigger and more hypercarnivorous than the modern wolverine. Using equations by Legendre (1986) for calculating body mass for mammals through linear dimensions of the first lower molar, Eomellivora averaged roughly 50 kg.

Eomellivora

PePeEfe · CC BY-SA 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
EomellivoriniPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mustelidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 2.9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 8.725 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 4.7 Mya.

Miocene — about 12 of 12 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPliocene16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 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 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 1 occurrence11–10 Mya — about 1 occurrence10–9.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence9.9–9.5 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences9.5–9.1 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences9.1–8.7 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences8.7–8.3 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences8.3–7.9 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences7.9–7.5 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences7.5–7.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences7.1–6.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.7–6.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.2–5.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.8–5.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.4–5.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.0–4.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11.63 Mya8.725 Mya16.5 Mya4.2 Mya

12 occurrences of Eomellivora 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

12 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

3 formations

Kern River — 35.30°N, 118.50°WChinji — 32.82°N, 75.37°ENea Messimvria — 40.77°N, 22.79°E

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The named rock units Eomellivora 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.

Eomellivora and its relatives

Miocene

Where Eomellivora and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

387 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Eomellivora, 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

10 references

Each of the 12 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 content2

Picture of Eomellivora

Credit
PePeEfe
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Eomellivora necrophila · wihg:wif/a:1409

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 itEomellivorini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zdansky 1924