Palaeomeryx
Palaeomeryx is an extinct genus of Artiodactyla, of the family Palaeomerycidae, endemic to Europe and Asia from the Miocene epoch, 16.9 – 7.25 Ma, existing for approximately 9.65 million years.

Jonathan Chen · 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.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- PalaeomerycidaePBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Palaeomerycidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Palaeomerycidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 16.9 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
74 occurrences of Palaeomeryx 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
74 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
- Shanwang Formation2
- Studienka Formation2
- Brackwater Molasse Formation · Molasse Group2
- Upper Freshwater Molasse Formation · Molasse Group2
- Lothidok Formation2
- Szurdokpüspöki Formation2
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The named rock units Palaeomeryx has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 52 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Palaeomeryx and its relatives
MioceneWhere Palaeomeryx and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,028 taxa- Anchitherium aurelianense18 sites
- Gomphotherium angustidens16 sites
- Procervulus dichotomus16 sites
- Hyotherium soemmeringi15 sites
- Testudo14 sites
- Lagopsis13 sites
- Prolagus oeningensis13 sites
- Aureliachoerus aurelianensis12 sites
- Bunolistriodon12 sites
- Dorcatherium crassum12 sites
- Dorcatherium guntianum12 sites
- Lagomeryx12 sites
- Prodeinotherium bavaricum12 sites
- Dicrocerus elegans11 sites
- Rhinocerotidae11 sites
- Semigenetta11 sites
- Trionyx11 sites
- Martes10 sites
- Proscapanus sansaniensis10 sites
- Steneofiber depereti10 sites
- Amphicyon major9 sites
- Brachyodus9 sites
- Brachypotherium brachypus9 sites
- Cainotherium9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 61 sites for Palaeomeryx, 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
44 references- Les fossiles de mammifères miocènes de la colletion de J.-P. Hartmann conservés dans le Musée du Savignéen7
- Stratigraphy and mammal faunas of the Brackwassermolasse in the surroundings of Ulm (Southwest Germany)4
- Neue Ergebnisse zur Stratigraphie der mittleren Serie der Oberen Süßwassermolasse Bayerns (New results on the stratigraphy of the middle series of upper Freshwater Molasse, Bavaria)4
- Les vertebres du Burdigalien superieur de Lisbonne4
- Temporal and spatial distribution of Miocene mammals in the western Carpatians (Slovakia)3
- La succession des faunes de mammiferes miocenes de Pontigne (Maine-et-Loire, France)3
- Prosansanosmilus peregrinus, ein neuer machairodontider Felide aus dem Miocän Deutschlands und Frankreichs3
- Catalogue of Tertiary Fossil Sites of the Land Mammals in the U.S.S.R.3
- Late Messinian mollusks and vertebrates from Moncucco Torinese, north-western Italy. Paleoecological and paleoclimatological implications2
- The Middle Miocene insectivores from Hasznos (Hungary, Nógrád County)2
- Tapiridae (Perissodactyla, Mammalia) of the Swiss Molasse Basin during the Oligocene–Miocene transition2
- Tertiary mammal faunas of the Lantien Region, Shaanxi Province2
Each of the 74 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. 32 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 Palaeomeryx
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Palaeomeryx was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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, “Palaeomeryx”
- 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 itPalaeomerycidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. von Meyer 1834