Mystipterus

via GBIF · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- UropsilinaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Talpidae
- Life habit
- fossorialPBDB, for Talpidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 18.5 Mya to 12.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 29.5 Mya to 5.333 Mya.
27 occurrences of Mystipterus 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
27 occurrencesThese 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
15 formations
- Valentine Formation · Ogallala Group5
- Batesland Formation4
- Renova Formation2
- Ash Hollow Formation · Ogallala Group2
- Harrison Formation · Arikaree Group1
- Runningwater Formation1
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The named rock units Mystipterus 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.
Mystipterus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Mystipterus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
589 taxa- Parvericius montanus13 sites
- Marmotini10 sites
- Archaeolaginae9 sites
- Metechinus amplior9 sites
- Untermannerix copiosus9 sites
- Miospermophilus8 sites
- Protospermophilus8 sites
- Cupidinimus nebraskensis7 sites
- Eucastor tortus7 sites
- Geomyoidea7 sites
- Leptocyon vafer7 sites
- Plesiosminthus clivosus7 sites
- Plesiosorex donroosai7 sites
- Teleoceras7 sites
- Aelurodon ferox6 sites
- Copemys longidens6 sites
- Domninoides valentinensis6 sites
- Hypohippus osborni6 sites
- Leidymys6 sites
- Mylagaulidae6 sites
- Parahippus cognatus6 sites
- Perognathus trojectioansrum6 sites
- Russellagus vonhofi6 sites
- Ustatochoerus medius6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Mystipterus, 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
17 references- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Ogallala Group in Nebraska6
- Small mammals from the Miocene Batesland Formation of South Dakota4
- Depositional Environments, Paleoecology, and Biostratigraphy of Arikareean Bozeman Group Strata West of the Continental Divide in Montana2
- Fossil Talpidae (Insectivora, Mammalia) from the Tertiary of Oregon2
- Middle Miocene carnivorans from the Monarch Mill Formation, Nevada1
- Biostratigraphy and biochronology of early Arikareean through late Hemingfordian small mammal faunas from the Nebraska Panhandle and adjacent areas1
- Road Log Neogene geology of the Española Basin, New Mexico1
- Fossil small mammals from the Harrison Formation (late Arikareean: earliest Miocene), Cherry County, Nebraska1
- Moles (Talpidae) from the Late Clarendonian Pratt Quarry, north central Nebraska1
- Vertebrate paleontology of the proposed Norden Reservoir Area, Brown, Cherry and Keya Paha counties, Nebraska1
- Mammals of the Topham Local Fauna: Early Miocene (Hemingfordian), Cypress Hills Formation, Saskatechewan1
- The Hottell Ranch rhino quarries (basal Ogallala: medial Barstovian), Banner County, Nebraska. Part I: Geologic setting, faunal lists, lower vertebrates1
Each of the 27 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. 5 further references are 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 Mystipterus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- via GBIF
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itUropsilinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1930