Hesperhys

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
- HesperhyinaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, omnivorePBDB, for Tayassuidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Tayassuidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 4.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 20.45 Mya to 16.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 29.5 Mya to 12.5 Mya.
18 occurrences of Hesperhys 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
18 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
11 formations
- Olcott Formation3
- Barstow Formation3
- Kirkwood Formation1
- Pawnee Creek Formation1
- Sheep Creek Formation1
- Fleming Formation1
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The named rock units Hesperhys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hesperhys and its relatives
MioceneWhere Hesperhys and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
234 taxa- Aphelops megalodus7 sites
- Cynarctoides acridens6 sites
- Ticholeptus zygomaticus5 sites
- Hypohippus4 sites
- Leptocyon leidyi4 sites
- Microtomarctus conferta4 sites
- Moropus merriami4 sites
- Osbornodon fricki4 sites
- Protomarctus optatus4 sites
- Teleoceras medicornutum4 sites
- Tomarctus hippophaga4 sites
- Amphicyon3 sites
- Brachycrus laticeps3 sites
- Euoplocyon brachygnathus3 sites
- Merychyus relictus3 sites
- Peraceras profectum3 sites
- Pliocyon3 sites
- Subdromomeryx antilopinus3 sites
- Acritohippus isonesus2 sites
- Acritohippus stylodontus2 sites
- Alphagaulus pristinus2 sites
- Alphagaulus vetus2 sites
- Anchitheriinae2 sites
- Archaeohippus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Hesperhys, 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
13 references- Evolution of the Early Miocene Hesperhyine Peccaries6
- Biostratigraphy and biochronology of early Arikareean through late Hemingfordian small mammal faunas from the Nebraska Panhandle and adjacent areas1
- Geology and paleontology of the upper John Day beds, John Day river valley, Oregon: lithostratigraphic and biochronologic revision in the Haystack Valley and Kimberly areas (Kimberly and Mt. Misery quadrangles)1
- The Arikareean Land Mammal Age in Texas and Florida: Southern extension of Great Plains faunas and Gulf Coastal Plain1
- Faunal succession and biochronology of the Arikareean through Hemphillian interval (late Oligocene through earliest Pliocene epochs) in North America1
- The Massacre Lake local fauna (Mammalia, Hemingfordian) from northwestern Washoe County, Nevada1
- Paleontology and nonmarine stratigraphy of the Cuyama Valley badlands, California; Part 1, Geology, faunal interpretations, and systematic descriptions of Chiroptera, Insectivora, and Rodentia1
- Fossil mammals from Montana. Part 1. Additions to the Late Miocene Flint Creek Local Fauna1
- Early Miocene rodents and insectivores from northeastern Colorado1
- The Nevada Miocene and Pliocene mammalian faunas as faunal units1
- New fossil mammals from the Snake Creek Quarries1
- A new genus of peccaries1
Each of the 18 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. 1 further reference is 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 Hesperhys
- 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 Hesperhys 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 itHesperhyinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Douglass 1903