Megalictis

Megalictis is an extinct genus of large predatory mustelids that existed in North America during the "cat gap" from the Late Arikareean (Ar4) in the Miocene epoch. It is thought to have resembled a huge, jaguar-sized ferret, weighing up to 60–100 kilograms (130–220 lb).

Megalictis

Alberto Valenciano, Jon A. Baskin, Juan Abella,Alejandro Pérez-Ramos, M. Ángeles Álvarez-Sierra, Jorge Morales, Adam… · CC BY 2.5 · 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
OligobuninaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mustelidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 4.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.1 Mya and 18.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 0 of 13 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 13 of 13 occurrencesMiocene23–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23.6 Mya18 Mya

13 occurrences of Megalictis 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

13 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

Marsland — 42.42°N, 103.87°WMarsland — 42.40°N, 103.80°WMarsland — 42.00°N, 104.20°WMarsland — 43.00°N, 104.50°WRosebud — 43.18°N, 102.30°WRosebud — 43.30°N, 102.50°WDelaho — 29.20°N, 103.20°WHarrison — 43.00°N, 104.50°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Megalictis 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.

Megalictis and its relatives

Miocene

Where Megalictis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

90 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Megalictis, 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

7 references

Each of the 13 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 Megalictis

Credit
Alberto Valenciano, Jon A. Baskin, Juan Abella,Alejandro Pérez-Ramos, M. Ángeles Álvarez-Sierra, Jorge Morales, Adam…
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Megalictis 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 itOligobuninae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthew 1907