Paracamelus
Paracamelus is an extinct genus of camel in the family Camelidae. It originated in North America and crossed the Beringian land bridge into Eurasia during the Late Miocene, about 6 million years ago (Ma). It is the presumed ancestor to living camels of the genus Camelus.

Post of Moldova · Public Domain · 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
- CameliniPBDB
- Diet
- browser, browserPBDB, for Camelidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Camelidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 6.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 9.4 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 12.5 Mya to 11.7 ka.
30 occurrences of Paracamelus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
30 occurrences- Miocene12%
- Pliocene70%
- Pleistocene18%
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
- Kairubak suite Formation3
- Khapry Formation2
- Kuruksai suite Formation1
- Venta del Moro-Villatoya Formation1
- Karbolia Formation1
- Kuyal'nikian Formation1
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The named rock units Paracamelus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Paracamelus and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Paracamelus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
406 taxa- Hipparion12 sites
- Anancus arvernensis8 sites
- Allohippus stenonis7 sites
- Ochotona7 sites
- Dicerorhinus6 sites
- Gazella6 sites
- Canis5 sites
- Cervidae5 sites
- Equus5 sites
- Gazella sinensis5 sites
- Ursus etruscus5 sites
- Cervus4 sites
- Lynx issiodorensis4 sites
- Mimomys4 sites
- Nyctereutes4 sites
- Vulpes4 sites
- Acinonyx pardinensis3 sites
- Agriotherium3 sites
- Allactaga3 sites
- Camelus3 sites
- Cricetulus3 sites
- Felis3 sites
- Giraffidae3 sites
- Pachycrocuta brevirostris3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Paracamelus, 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
19 references- Large Ruscinian Mammalia in the Territory of the Former Soviet Union6
- Upper Cenozoic bio-magnetic stratigraphy of Central Asian mammalian localities6
- Fossil Teriofauna of the Liventzovka sand-pit2
- New carnivoran remains from the Early Pleistocene Shanshenmiaozui site in Nihewan Basin, northern China1
- North American–Asian aquatic bird dispersal in the Miocene: evidence from a new species of diving duck (Anseriformes: Anatidae) from North America (Nevada) with affinities to Mongolian taxa1
- Early Pliocene Bear Ursus thibetanus (Mammalia, Carnivora) from Priozernoe Locality in the Dniester Basin (Moldova Republic)1
- First finds of giant land tortoises discovered in Bulgaria1
- The first camel from the Upper Miocene of Turkey and the dispersal of the camels into the Old World1
- Biochronology and evolution of the Early Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene mammalian faunas of Romania1
- Chad: discovery of a vertebrate fauna close to the Mio-Pliocene boundary1
- Fossil equids (Mammalia, Equidae) from the Neogene and Pleistocene of Tadzhikistan1
- Dursunlu - a new Lower Pleistocene faunal and artifact-bearing locality in southern Anatolia.1
Each of the 30 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. 7 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 Paracamelus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Post of Moldova
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Paracamelus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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, “Paracamelus”
- 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 itCamelini through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schlosser 1903