Pachyaena gigantea

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- PachyaenaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Mesonychidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Mesonychidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 48.07 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Pachyaena gigantea 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
7 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
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Pachyaena gigantea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Pachyaena gigantea and its relatives
EoceneWhere Pachyaena gigantea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
83 taxa- Arenahippus aemulor3 sites
- Diacodexis metsiacus3 sites
- Ectocion osbornianus3 sites
- Esthonyx bisulcatus3 sites
- Haplomylus speirianus3 sites
- Homogalax protapirinus3 sites
- Thryptacodon antiquus3 sites
- Allognathosuchus2 sites
- Arfia shoshoniensis2 sites
- Cantius mckennai2 sites
- Cardiolophus radinskyi2 sites
- Copecion brachypternus2 sites
- Coryphodon eocaenus2 sites
- Hyopsodus loomisi2 sites
- Lacertilia2 sites
- Oxyaena2 sites
- Pachyaena ossifraga2 sites
- Palaeanodon ignavus2 sites
- Palaeosinopa veterrima2 sites
- Paramys copei2 sites
- Paramys taurus2 sites
- Phenacodus intermedius2 sites
- Phenacodus trilobatus2 sites
- Phenacodus vortmani2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Pachyaena gigantea, 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
5 references- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the McCullough Peaks, northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming: Implications for biochronology, basin development, and community reorganization across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary3
- The European Mesonychid Mammals: Phylogeny, Ecology, Biogeography, and Biochronology1
- New mesonychian dentitions from the Paleocene of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming1
- Postcranial Skeleton of the Early Eocene Mesonychid Pachyaena (Mammalia: Mesonychia)1
- Faunal Zonation of the Willwood Formation in the Central Bighorn Basin, Wyoming1
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 content1

Picture of Pachyaena gigantea
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- 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 itPachyaena through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Osborn and Wortman 1892