Palaeochiropterygidae

Palaeochiropterygidae is a family of extinct bats. It was originally erected by the Swiss naturalist Pierre Revilliod in 1917 after discoveries of Palaeochiropteryx fossils from the Messel Pit of Germany. Palaeochiropterygidae was merged into Archaeonycteridae by Kurten and Anderson in 1980, but modern authorities specializing in bat fossils maintain the distinction between the two. It was classified to the unranked clade Microchiropteramorpha by Smith et al. in 2007.

Palaeochiropterygidae

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
MicrochiropteramorphaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Chiroptera
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Chiroptera
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Chiroptera

Time the record covers

At least 7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 41.03 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 37.71 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesEocene — about 12 of 12 occurrencesEocene57–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences51–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences48.07 Mya41.03 Mya56.5 Mya37.2 Mya

12 occurrences of Palaeochiropterygidae 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

12 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

6 formations

Heti — 35.09°N, 111.86°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.73°ECambay Shale — 21.40°N, 73.08°ETielt — 51.01°N, 3.23°EUzunçarşidere — 40.09°N, 32.74°E"Sheep Pass" — 39.00°N, 114.10°W

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The named rock units Palaeochiropterygidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeochiropterygidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Palaeochiropterygidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

331 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Palaeochiropterygidae, 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

10 references

Each of the 12 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 Palaeochiropterygidae

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itMicrochiropteramorpha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Revilliod 1917