Oenomys
Oenomys is a genus of African rodents known as rufous-nosed rats. They occur from south-east Guinea and Ghana through the Congo forest to Uganda and Kenya. The nose is reddish, or at least the cheeks, which suggested both the English and scientific names.

Telegro · 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.
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.
7 occurrences of Oenomys on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
7 occurrences- Pliocene29%
- Pleistocene57%
- Holocene14%
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
- Kapthurin Formation2
- Hadar Formation · Awash Group2
- Shungura Formation · Omo Group1
- Olduvai Formation1
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The named rock units Oenomys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Oenomys and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Oenomys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
139 taxa- Clarias3 sites
- Golunda gurai3 sites
- Metridiochoerus3 sites
- Otomys3 sites
- Praomys3 sites
- Tatera3 sites
- Tragelaphus scriptus3 sites
- Alcelaphus2 sites
- Antidorcas2 sites
- Cephalophus2 sites
- Ceratotherium simum2 sites
- Colobus2 sites
- Crocodylus2 sites
- Dendromus2 sites
- Heterohyrax2 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius2 sites
- Homo erectus2 sites
- Hystrix2 sites
- Kobus ellipsiprymnus2 sites
- Kolpochoerus afarensis2 sites
- Kolpochoerus limnetes2 sites
- Lemniscomys2 sites
- Mammalia2 sites
- Melanoides2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Oenomys, 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
6 references- Paleontological excavations in the Shungura Formation, Lower Omo Basin, 1969-19732
- Holocene Paleoenvironmental Change in the Kenyan Central Rift Indicated by Micromammals from Enkapune Ya Muto Rockshelter1
- Geology and fauna of the middle Miocene hominoid site at Muruyur,Baringo District,Kenya1
- Evolution and sedimentary character of lake deltas fed by ephemeral rivers in the Turkana Basin, southern Kenya1
- The Omo Group: Archives of the International Omo Research Expedition1
- Fossil snakes from Olduvai,Tanzania1
Each of the 7 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 content2
Picture of Oenomys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Telegro
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Oenomys hypoxanthus · AMNH:Mammals:M-55684
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Oenomys”
- 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 itFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thomas 1904