Miracinonyx trumani

Miracinonyx, colloquially known as the American cheetah, is an extinct genus of feline that was native to North America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epoch. Its closest living relative is the cougar, while its anatomical similarities to the modern cheetah are possibly a result of convergent evolution, the development of analogous physical traits between distinct, not closely related species with a shared ancestry due to facing similar environmental pressures.

Miracinonyx trumani

Edward Drinker Cope (1899) · Public Domain · 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
MiracinonyxPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Felidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 199 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences710 ka0 Mya

3 occurrences of Miracinonyx trumani on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

3 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.

Miracinonyx trumani and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Miracinonyx trumani and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

58 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Miracinonyx trumani, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Miracinonyx trumani

Credit
Edward Drinker Cope (1899)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Miracinonyx trumani · ku:kuvp:435639

3D model

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

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 itMiracinonyx through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Orr 1969)