Leptictis

Leptictis is an extinct genus of leptictid non-placental eutherian mammal known from the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene of North America. The type species, L. haydeni, was named in 1868 by Joseph Leidy in honour of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. L. dakotensis was also named by Leidy in 1868, but he originally named it as a separate genus, Ictops, which is now seen as the same animal as Lepticitis. Since then, six other species have been named.

Leptictis

Ryan Somma · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
LeptictinaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Leptictidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Leptictidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 5.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 37 Mya to 31.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 39.7 Mya to 29.5 Mya.

Eocene — about 14 of 22 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 8 of 22 occurrencesOligocene40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–32 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences37 Mya31.8 Mya40.2 Mya29 Mya

22 occurrences of Leptictis 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

22 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

4 formations

Chadron — 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°WBrule — 42.90°N, 105.20°WBrule — 46.90°N, 102.80°WBrule — 43.90°N, 102.40°WBrule — 43.85°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.20°N, 103.20°WCollegats — 42.25°N, 1.08°EDunbar Creek — 45.70°N, 111.00°W

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The named rock units Leptictis 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.

Leptictis and its relatives

Eocene

Where Leptictis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

333 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Leptictis, 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

16 references

Each of the 22 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. 4 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 content2

Picture of Leptictis

Credit
Ryan Somma
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itLeptictinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leidy 1868