Perognathinae
Perognathinae is a subfamily of rodents consisting of two genera of pocket mice. Most species live in complex burrows within the deserts and grasslands of western North America. They feed mostly on seeds and other plant parts, which they carry in their fur-lined cheek pouches to their burrows.

Bob Beatson from Tucson, Arizona · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
- HeteromyidaePBDB
- Diet
- granivore, browserPBDB, for Heteromyidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Heteromyidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 18 million years on record.
The record covers at least 18.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 29.5 Mya to 0 Mya.
263 occurrences of Perognathinae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
263 occurrences- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene47%
- Pliocene19%
- Pleistocene33%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
59 formations
- Barstow Formation36
- Palm Spring Formation23
- "unnamed sandstone" Formation21
- Dove Spring Formation10
- Valentine Formation · Ogallala Group9
- St. David Formation8
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The named rock units Perognathinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 35 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 48 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Perognathinae and its relatives
MioceneWhere Perognathinae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,452 taxa- Equus48 sites
- Sigmodon minor40 sites
- Dipodomys37 sites
- Peromyscus33 sites
- Camelidae32 sites
- Perognathus minutus31 sites
- Camelops29 sites
- Leporidae29 sites
- Spermophilus29 sites
- Archaeolaginae28 sites
- Sylvilagus28 sites
- Perognathus furlongi27 sites
- Hemiauchenia26 sites
- Neotoma26 sites
- Copemys longidens24 sites
- Platygonus23 sites
- Sigmodon22 sites
- Geomyidae21 sites
- Megascapheus bottae20 sites
- Thomomys20 sites
- Cupidinimus lindsayi19 sites
- Sorex19 sites
- Canis latrans18 sites
- Cupidinimus halli18 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 213 sites for Perognathinae, 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
77 references- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals95
- Small mammal fossils from the Barstow Formation, California22
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Ogallala Group in Nebraska9
- Miocene biostratigraphy and biochronology of the Dove Spring Formation, Mojave Desert, California, and characterization of the Clarendonian mammal age (late Miocene) in California8
- Biostratigraphic relationships of Tertiary small vertebrates from Cajon Valley, San Bernardino County, California6
- Vertebrate Fossils From the Blanco Local Fauna of Texas6
- Paleontology and nonmarine stratigraphy of the Cuyama Valley badlands, California; Part 1, Geology, faunal interpretations, and systematic descriptions of Chiroptera, Insectivora, and Rodentia5
- Hemingfordian/Barstovian Land Mammal Age faunas in the central Mojave Desert, exclusive of the Barstow Fossil Beds4
- Reconstruction of mid Wisconsinan environments in southern New Mexico4
- A Survey of Tertiary Species of Perognathus (Perognathinae) and a description of a new genus of Heteromyinae,4
- The Rodents from the Hagerman Local Fauna, Upper Pliocene of Idaho4
- Two fossil accumulations in the Upper Barstow Formation, Mud Hills, Mojave Desert, CA3
Each of the 263 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. 65 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 Perognathinae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Bob Beatson from Tucson, Arizona
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Perognathinae 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 itHeteromyidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Coues 1875