Lambdopsalis bulla
Lambdopsalis is an extinct multituberculate mammal from the Late Paleocene of China and Mongolia. It is placed within the suborder Cimolodonta and is a member of the superfamily Taeniolabidoidea. Fossil remains have been found in the Late Paleocene Nomogen and Khashat Formations in Nao-mugen and Bayn Ulan of China and Mongolia, dated to 59-55 million years ago from the Thanetian age. Lambdopsalis bulla is the type species of this genus. The genus and species were named by Chow and Tao Qi in 1978.

Neil F. Adams, Emily J Rayfield, Philip Cox, Samuel N. Cobb · 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
- LambdopsalisPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Multituberculata
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Multituberculata
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At most 3.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 59.24 Mya and 56 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Lambdopsalis bulla on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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
3 occurrences- Paleocene100%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Lambdopsalis bulla has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Lambdopsalis bulla and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Lambdopsalis bulla and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
74 taxa- Palaeostylops iturus3 sites
- Dissacus serratus2 sites
- Eomylus bayanulanensis2 sites
- Hyracolestes ermineus2 sites
- Palaeostylops macrodon2 sites
- Prionessus lucifer2 sites
- Prodinoceras2 sites
- Pseudictops lophiodon2 sites
- Tribosphenomys minutus2 sites
- Asionyctia guoi1 site
- Bayanulanius tenuis1 site
- Bumbanius ningi1 site
- Caenoclavator hubeiensis1 site
- Caganella oblonga1 site
- Chara1 site
- Cimolesta1 site
- Collichara taizhouensis1 site
- Collichara xiaohekouensis1 site
- Convallisodon convexus1 site
- Convallisodon haliutensis1 site
- Cypris dashzevegi1 site
- Cyprois xuyiensis1 site
- Eomylus borealis1 site
- Eurymylus laticeps1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Lambdopsalis bulla, 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
3 references- A large new collection of Palaeostylops from the Paleocene of the Flaming Cliffs area (Ulan-Nur Basin, Gobi Desert, Mongolia), and an evaluation of the phylogenetic affinities of Arctostylopidae (Mammalia, Gliriformes)1
- The Gashatan (late Paleocene) mammal fauna from Subeng, Inner Mongolia1
- Paleocene Mammalian Fossils from Nomogen Formation of Inner Mongolia1
Each of the 3 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 Lambdopsalis bulla
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Neil F. Adams, Emily J Rayfield, Philip Cox, Samuel N. Cobb
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lambdopsalis bulla was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itLambdopsalis through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chow and Qi 1978