Heliscomys vetus

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- HeliscomysPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 5.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 37 Mya and 31.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
10 occurrences of Heliscomys vetus on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
10 occurrencesThese 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
2 formations
- Chadron Formation5
- Brule Formation · White River Group3
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Heliscomys vetus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Heliscomys vetus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Heliscomys vetus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
261 taxa- Herpetotherium fugax7 sites
- Paradjidaumo trilophus7 sites
- Domnina gradata6 sites
- Hypisodus minimus6 sites
- Adjidaumo minimus5 sites
- Altasciurus relictus5 sites
- Aulolithomys bounites5 sites
- Brontotheriidae5 sites
- Adjidaumo minutus4 sites
- Cedromus wardi4 sites
- Ecclesimus tenuiceps4 sites
- Eumys elegans4 sites
- Heliscomys hatcheri4 sites
- Hesperocyon gregarius4 sites
- Ischyromys veterior4 sites
- Leptomeryx4 sites
- Megalagus brachyodon4 sites
- Micropternodus borealis4 sites
- Nanodelphys huntii4 sites
- Oligoryctes cameronensis4 sites
- Palaeolagus haydeni4 sites
- Palaeolagus temnodon4 sites
- Peltosaurus4 sites
- Prosciurus vetustus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Heliscomys vetus, 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
7 references- Correlation of the early Oligocene (Chadronian) in northwestern Nebraska3
- Geomyoid rodents (Mammalia) from the Orellan (middle Oligocene) of Nebraska,2
- Fossil mammals from ant mounds situated on exposures of the Big Cottonwood Creek Member of the Chadron Formation (latest Eocene - Early Oligocene), Sioux County, Nebraska1
- Rodents from the Chadronian (latest Eocene) Medicine Pole Hills local fauna, North Dakota. Part 2. Ischyromidae, Sciuravidae, Aplodontidae, Sciuridae and Heliscomyidae1
- Paleontology and geology of the Badwater Creek area, central Wyoming. Part 16. The Cedar Ridge local fauna (late Oligocene)1
- Sutton and Black, 19751
- A contribution to the Tertiary geology and paleontology of northeastern Colorado1
Each of the 10 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 Heliscomys vetus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Heliscomys vetus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHeliscomys through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1873)