Laolestes

Laolestes is an extinct genus of dryolestid mammal. Fossil remains are known from the Morrison Formation, in stratigraphic zones 5 and 6., the Late Jurassic of Portugal, and Early Cretaceous Wadhurst Clay of the United Kingdom.

Laolestes

Internet Archive Book Images · No restrictions · 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
DryolestidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 137.05 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 132.6 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 9 of 11 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 11 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences138–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–136 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences136–135 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences135–134 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences134–134 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences134–133 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences133–132 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149.2 Mya137.05 Mya155.3 Mya132.1 Mya

11 occurrences of Laolestes on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

11 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

Morrison — 41.89°N, 106.00°WMorrison — 41.99°N, 106.08°WWadhurst Clay — 50.89°N, 0.69°EWadhurst Clay — 51.01°N, 0.76°ELourinhã — 39.22°N, 9.34°W

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

Laolestes and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Laolestes and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

129 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Laolestes, 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

6 references

Each of the 11 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 Laolestes

Credit
Internet Archive Book Images
Licence
No restrictions
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Laolestes 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 itDryolestidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Simpson 1927