Livyatan melvillei

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- LivyatanPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Odontoceti
- Life habit
- aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti
Time the record covers
At most 4.4 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 7.246 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Livyatan melvillei 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
1 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Livyatan melvillei has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Livyatan melvillei and its relatives
MioceneWhere Livyatan melvillei and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
31 taxa- Brachydelphis mazeasi1 site
- Carcharhinidae1 site
- Carcharhinus1 site
- Carcharhinus brachyurus1 site
- Carcharhinus macloti1 site
- Carcharodon hastalis1 site
- Cetotheriidae1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Elansmobranchi indet.1 site
- Galeocerdo aduncus1 site
- Getotheriidae indet.1 site
- Kentriodontidae1 site
- Lamnidae1 site
- Messapicetus gregarius1 site
- Myliobatidae1 site
- Osteichthyes indet.1 site
- Otodus megalodon1 site
- Phalacrocorax1 site
- Phocidae1 site
- Physeteroidea1 site
- Pontoporiidae1 site
- Procellaridae indet.1 site
- Sardinops1 site
- Sardinops sagax1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Livyatan melvillei, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content3

Picture of Livyatan melvillei
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Laser scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Livyatan melvillei · MUSM:1676
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 itLivyatan through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lambert et al. 2010)