Pelagiarctos

Pelagiarctos was a genus of walrus that lived during the Middle Miocene, approx. 13-15 mya. Its fossilised remains have been found in the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed, in Kern County, California. It was originally described as an Otariidae, though it is now usually considered to be a basal Odobenidae.

Pelagiarctos

Robert W Boessenecker Morgan Churchill · CC BY 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
OdobenidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Odobenidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia

Time the record covers

At most 6.7 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 13.82 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya13.3 Mya

3 occurrences of Pelagiarctos 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

3 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

2 formations

Temblor — 35.47°N, 118.91°WTopanga — 33.60°N, 117.67°W

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The named rock units Pelagiarctos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Pelagiarctos and its relatives

Miocene

Where Pelagiarctos and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

59 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Pelagiarctos, 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

2 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Pelagiarctos

Credit
Robert W Boessenecker Morgan Churchill
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pelagiarctos 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

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 itOdobenidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Barnes 1988