Palaeocastor

Palaeocastor is an extinct genus of beavers that lived in the North American Badlands during the late Oligocene period to early Miocene, 29.5~18.5 million years ago. Palaeocastor was much smaller than modern beavers. There are several species including Palaeocastor fossor, Palaeocastor magnus, Palaeocastor wahlerti, and Palaeocastor peninsulatus. The animals first became known on grounds of their fossilized burrows, the "Devil's corkscrews."

Palaeocastor

Ryan Schwark · CC0 · 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
PalaeocastorinaePBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Castoridae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Castoridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 11 million years on record.

The record covers at least 29.5 Mya to 18.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 31.8 Mya to 16.3 Mya.

Oligocene — about 66 of 85 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 19 of 85 occurrencesMiocene32–32 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 5 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 5 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 5 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 5 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 6 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 6 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 6 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 6 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 6 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 4 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 4 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 4 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29.5 Mya18.5 Mya32.3 Mya15.8 Mya

85 occurrences of Palaeocastor on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

85 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.

Found in

15 formations

Sharps — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.50°N, 101.90°WBrule — 41.50°N, 103.80°WBrule — 41.70°N, 103.10°WBrule — 43.76°N, 101.93°WBrule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WGering — 41.70°N, 103.10°WJohn Day — 44.67°N, 119.63°WJohn Day — 44.90°N, 121.30°WJohn Day — 44.55°N, 119.63°WJohn Day — 44.79°N, 119.58°WJohn Day — 44.83°N, 119.74°WMonroe Creek — 43.30°N, 102.50°WHarrison — 43.30°N, 102.50°WHarrison — 42.80°N, 100.80°WHarrison — 42.40°N, 103.80°WWildcat Hills Beds — 41.70°N, 103.67°WArikaree — 41.70°N, 103.10°WOakville — 30.10°N, 96.10°WAral — 47.37°N, 60.87°ETurtle Butte — 43.07°N, 99.83°WCoffee Mill Butte Beds — 42.55°N, 103.35°WLavaca Flats Beds — 42.80°N, 102.20°WMarsland — 42.42°N, 103.87°WBelgrade — 34.89°N, 77.23°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Palaeocastor has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeocastor and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Palaeocastor and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

463 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 83 sites for Palaeocastor, 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

20 references

Each of the 85 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. 8 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 content2

Picture of Palaeocastor

Credit
Ryan Schwark
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Palaeocastor fossor · AMNH:F:AM:65022

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 itPalaeocastorinae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leidy 1869