Microsyops elegans

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- MicrosyopsPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Primates
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Primates
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 11 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 45.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
64 occurrences of Microsyops elegans 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
64 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
8 formations
- Bridger Formation38
- Aycross Formation9
- Wasatch Formation3
- Green River Formation3
- DeBeque Formation2
- Wind River Formation2
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The named rock units Microsyops elegans has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Microsyops elegans and its relatives
EoceneWhere Microsyops elegans and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
229 taxa- Sciuravus nitidus29 sites
- Hyopsodus minusculus24 sites
- Omomys carteri23 sites
- Hyrachyus20 sites
- Orohippus pumilus17 sites
- Smilodectes mcgrewi14 sites
- Hyopsodus paulus13 sites
- Thisbemys corrugatus13 sites
- Uintaparamys parvus13 sites
- Washakius insignis13 sites
- Notharctus robinsoni12 sites
- Paramys delicatus12 sites
- Antiacodon pygmaeus11 sites
- Anaptomorphus westi10 sites
- Apatemys bellulus10 sites
- Microparamys minutus10 sites
- Notharctus9 sites
- Paramyidae9 sites
- Scenopagus edenensis9 sites
- Herpetotherium knighti8 sites
- Palaeosyops fontinalis8 sites
- Smilodectes gracilis8 sites
- Hyrachyus modestus7 sites
- Metacheiromys7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 63 sites for Microsyops elegans, 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
13 references- Mammalian Fauna From the Lower Bridger Formation (Bridger A, Early Middle Eocene) of the Southern Green River Basin, Wyoming25
- Geology and mammalian paleontology of the New Fork-Big Sandy area, Sublette County, Wyoming9
- Geology, Paleontology, and Correlation of Eocene Volcaniclastic Rocks, Southeast Absaroka Range, Hot Springs County, Wyoming7
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals6
- Magnetostratigraphy across the Wasatchian-Bridgerian boundary (early to middle Eocene) in the western Green River Basin, Wyoming4
- Paleontology and correlation of Eocene volcanic rocks in the Carter Mountain area, Park County, southeastern Absaroka Range, Wyoming3
- Wapiti Valley Faunas: Early and Middle Eocene Fossil Vertebrates from the North Fork of the Shoshone River, Park County, Wyoming2
- Vertebrate paleontology of the Togwotee Pass area, northwestern Wyoming2
- Part I. Contributions to the extinct vertebrate fauna of the western territories2
- Evolutionary History of Microsyopoidea (Mammalia, ?Primates) and the Relationship Between Plesiadapiformes and Primates1
- Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a review of the fish fauna1
- The stratigraphy and paleontology of Bridger A1
Each of the 64 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. 1 further reference is 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 Microsyops elegans
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Microsyops elegans 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMicrosyops through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Marsh 1871)