Pentacodontidae

Pentacodontidae is an extinct family of placental mammals from extinct order Pantolesta, that lived in North America and Europe from the early to late Paleocene.

Pentacodontidae

Uncredited · 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
CimolestaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Theria
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 7.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 63.4 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 51.1 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 63 occurrencesPaleocene — about 59 of 63 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 4 of 63 occurrencesEocene67–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 5 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 5 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 5 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 5 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 5 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 5 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 5 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 5 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 5 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 5 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 5 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences52–52 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–51 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences63.4 Mya56 Mya66.5 Mya50.6 Mya

63 occurrences of Pentacodontidae on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

63 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

Fort Union — 41.70°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 43.85°N, 108.35°WFort Union — 45.80°N, 109.80°WFort Union — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFort Union — 45.80°N, 110.50°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.38°WFort Union — 45.20°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 43.20°N, 107.10°WFort Union — 45.10°N, 106.90°WFort Union — 43.45°N, 109.16°WPaskapoo — 51.90°N, 113.30°WPaskapoo — 53.23°N, 114.70°WPaskapoo — 52.40°N, 113.80°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WPaskapoo — 51.50°N, 112.30°WPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.77°WWasatch — 41.70°N, 109.00°WPorcupine Hills — 51.10°N, 114.28°W"Fort Union" (= Lebo) — 45.80°N, 109.80°W"Fort Union" (= Lebo) — 46.20°N, 109.90°WMelville — 45.80°N, 109.80°WMelville — 46.02°N, 110.28°WTullock — 47.80°N, 106.10°WCoalspur — 53.00°N, 116.80°WNorth Horn — 39.18°N, 111.27°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WSlope — 46.70°N, 101.80°WEvanston — 41.58°N, 110.68°WSentinel Butte — 47.20°N, 101.90°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WHainin — 50.43°N, 3.75°E

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The named rock units Pentacodontidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pentacodontidae and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Pentacodontidae and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

595 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 52 sites for Pentacodontidae, 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

27 references

Each of the 63 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. 15 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 Pentacodontidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Pentacodontidae 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

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 itCimolesta through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Simpson 1937)