Leptictida

Leptictida is a possibly paraphyletic extinct order of eutherian mammals. Their classification is contentious: according to cladistic studies, they may be (distantly) related to Euarchontoglires, although they are more recently regarded as the first branch to split from basal eutherians. One recent large-scale cladistic analysis of eutherian mammals favored lepictidans as close to the placental crown-clade; and several other recent analyses that included data from Cretaceous non-eutherian mammals found Leptictis to belong to the superorder Afrotheria.

Leptictida

LadyofHats · Public Domain · 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
EutheriaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Theria
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 40 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 31.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 29.5 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 97 of 458 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 93 of 458 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 240 of 458 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 28 of 458 occurrencesOligocene85–83 Mya — about 2 occurrences83–81 Mya — about 4 occurrences81–79 Mya — about 4 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 4 occurrences77–75 Mya — about 4 occurrences75–73 Mya — about 4 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 10 occurrences72–70 Mya — about 22 occurrences70–68 Mya — about 22 occurrences68–66 Mya — about 22 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 10 occurrences64–62 Mya — about 19 occurrences62–60 Mya — about 23 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 23 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 16 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 48 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 64 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 59 occurrences51–49 Mya — about 12 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 9 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 6 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 4 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 4 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 3 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 5 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 12 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 14 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 21 occurrences32–30 Mya — about 7 occurrences30–28 Mya — about 1 occurrence72.2 Mya31.8 Mya85 Mya28 Mya

458 occurrences of Leptictida on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

458 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

65 formations

Willwood — 44.00°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.30°N, 109.00°WWillwood — 44.59°N, 108.86°WWillwood — 44.44°N, 108.63°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.67°WWillwood — 44.56°N, 108.70°WWillwood — 44.53°N, 108.79°WWillwood — 44.65°N, 108.54°WWillwood — 44.66°N, 108.68°WWillwood — 44.39°N, 108.71°WWillwood — 44.39°N, 108.77°WWillwood — 44.66°N, 108.79°WWillwood — 44.76°N, 108.88°WWillwood — 44.15°N, 107.87°WWillwood — 44.15°N, 107.86°WFort Union — 47.60°N, 107.00°WFort Union — 41.70°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 41.30°N, 107.74°WFort Union — 43.85°N, 108.35°WFort Union — 45.80°N, 109.80°WFort Union — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFort Union — 45.80°N, 110.50°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.38°WFort Union — 44.89°N, 108.91°WFort Union — 43.20°N, 107.10°WFort Union — 45.10°N, 106.90°WFort Union — 44.30°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 47.58°N, 107.05°WFort Union — 44.66°N, 108.30°WFort Union — 44.88°N, 109.12°WFort Union — 41.68°N, 107.52°WHell Creek — 47.63°N, 106.20°WHell Creek — 47.55°N, 107.13°WHell Creek — 47.60°N, 107.00°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 47.57°N, 107.10°WHell Creek — 45.50°N, 103.10°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 106.40°WHell Creek — 47.87°N, 106.18°WHell Creek — 47.65°N, 106.20°WHell Creek — 45.40°N, 105.60°WHell Creek — 46.10°N, 103.30°WHell Creek — 47.68°N, 106.43°WHell Creek — 46.27°N, 106.68°WHell Creek — 45.76°N, 104.92°WHell Creek — 46.45°N, 104.02°WWasatch — 41.80°N, 110.70°WWasatch — 40.60°N, 108.10°WWasatch — 41.70°N, 109.00°WWasatch — 41.80°N, 107.00°WWasatch — 42.70°N, 110.10°WWasatch — 42.37°N, 108.91°WLance — 43.18°N, 104.53°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 43.25°N, 104.65°WLance — 43.00°N, 104.50°WLance — 43.13°N, 104.49°WLance — 43.25°N, 104.52°WLance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 43.80°N, 104.62°WLance — 45.04°N, 108.80°WWind River — 43.20°N, 108.20°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.33°WBrule — 42.90°N, 105.20°WBrule — 40.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 42.80°N, 103.10°WBrule — 46.90°N, 102.80°WBrule — 43.90°N, 102.40°WBrule — 42.40°N, 103.80°WBrule — 43.85°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.20°N, 103.20°WDeBeque — 40.00°N, 107.90°WDeBeque — 39.20°N, 108.20°WDeBeque — 39.70°N, 107.60°WChadron — 42.90°N, 105.20°WChadron — 45.47°N, 112.62°WChadron — 46.10°N, 103.30°WChadron — 43.30°N, 102.50°WChadron — 42.75°N, 103.65°WNacimiento — 36.30°N, 108.20°WNacimiento — 36.57°N, 107.97°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WNacimiento — 36.00°N, 107.17°WCypress Hills — 50.20°N, 107.60°WCypress Hills — 50.00°N, 107.90°WCypress Hills — 49.80°N, 109.00°WCypress Hills — 49.60°N, 108.80°W"Wasatch" — 44.00°N, 106.60°WScollard — 52.33°N, 113.12°WScollard — 51.91°N, 112.97°WScollard — 51.80°N, 113.00°WJudith River — 46.42°N, 109.27°WJudith River — 47.81°N, 109.59°WJudith River — 46.10°N, 109.10°WJudith River — 48.57°N, 109.70°WJudith River — 48.93°N, 110.58°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.77°WPaskapoo — 51.00°N, 114.10°WSuffolk Pebble Beds — 52.09°N, 1.32°EOldman — 50.78°N, 110.50°WOldman — 49.30°N, 110.60°WOldman — 50.90°N, 111.80°WOldman — 49.07°N, 110.66°WKaiparowits — 37.40°N, 111.20°WKaiparowits — 37.80°N, 111.50°WKaiparowits — 37.42°N, 111.77°WFrenchman — 49.30°N, 108.40°WFrenchman — 49.50°N, 109.20°WFrenchman — 49.52°N, 108.82°WSan Jose — 35.70°N, 107.00°WSan Jose — 36.50°N, 107.00°WBlackheath Beds — 51.43°N, 0.15°ELignites de Soissonais — 43.62°N, 5.75°ELignites de Soissonais — 49.05°N, 4.00°ELignites de Soissonais — 49.08°N, 4.03°EPrince Creek — 70.02°N, 151.59°WPrince Creek — 70.09°N, 151.54°WTullock — 47.80°N, 106.10°WTullock — 47.60°N, 107.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Leptictida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 41 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 50 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Leptictida and its relatives

Eocene

Where Leptictida and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,732 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 364 sites for Leptictida, and this reads 240 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

150 references

Each of the 458 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. 138 further references are 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 Leptictida

Credit
LadyofHats
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Leptictida 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 itEutheria through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (McKenna 1975)