Mellivora benfieldi

Mellivora benfieldi or Benfield's honey badger is an extinct species of mustelid from the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene of Africa and possibly Europe.

Mellivora benfieldi

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
MellivoraPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mellivora
Life habit
semifossorialPBDB, for Mellivora
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 8.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 3.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesPliocene12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences10–10 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences10–9.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.7–9.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.4–9.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.1–8.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.8–8.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.5–8.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.2–7.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.9–7.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.6–7.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.3–7.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.0–6.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.7–6.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.4–6.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.1–5.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.8–5.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.5–5.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.2–4.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.9–4.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.6–4.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.3–4.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.0–3.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.7–3.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12.1 Mya3.1 Mya

2 occurrences of Mellivora benfieldi 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

2 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

2 formations

Adu-Asa — 10.32°N, 40.25°EColombacci — 44.22°N, 11.77°E

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

Mellivora benfieldi and its relatives

Miocene

Where Mellivora benfieldi and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

144 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mellivora benfieldi, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mellivora benfieldi

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mellivora benfieldi 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 itMellivora through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hendy 1978