Plesiadapis rex

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- PlesiadapisPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Plesiadapoidea
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Plesiadapoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Plesiadapoidea
Time the record covers
At most 3.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 60.9 Mya and 57.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
15 occurrences of Plesiadapis rex 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
15 occurrences- Paleocene100%
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
7 formations
- Paskapoo Formation3
- Fort Union Formation2
- Hoback Formation1
- Slope Formation1
- Wasatch Formation1
- Evanston Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Plesiadapis rex has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Plesiadapis rex and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Plesiadapis rex and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
174 taxa- Ectocion collinus11 sites
- Thryptacodon australis9 sites
- Elpidophorus elegans7 sites
- Ignacius frugivorus7 sites
- Ptilodus7 sites
- Carpodaptes hazelae6 sites
- Phenacodus grangeri6 sites
- Arctocyon ferox5 sites
- Bessoecetor septentrionalis5 sites
- Ectocion cedrus5 sites
- Aletodon quadravus4 sites
- Ectypodus powelli4 sites
- Leptacodon tener4 sites
- Litocherus lacunatus4 sites
- Litocherus zygeus4 sites
- Neoplagiaulax hazeni4 sites
- Neoplagiaulax hunteri4 sites
- Peradectes elegans4 sites
- Protictis paralus4 sites
- Raphictis gausion4 sites
- Arctocyon acrogenius3 sites
- Bisonalveus3 sites
- Chriacus oconostotae3 sites
- Dissacus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Plesiadapis rex, 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
12 references- Cranial Anatomy and Evolution of Early Tertiary Plesiadapidae (Mammalia, Primates)4
- A new Paleocene (Tiffanian) mammalian local fauna from near Drayton Valley, central Alberta, Canada1
- Paleocene mammals and faunal analysis of the Chappo Type Locality (Tiffanian), Green River Basin, Wyoming1
- The succession of Paleocene mammals in western Canada1
- Late Cretaceous and Paleocene mammal localities of southern Alberta1
- The Clarkforkian Land-Mammal Age and Mammalian Faunal Composition Across the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary1
- History of early Cenozoic vertebrate paleontology in the Bighorn Basin1
- Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary vertebrate paleontological reconnaissance, Togwotee Pass area, northwestern Wyoming1
- Late Paleocene (Tiffanian) mammalian fauna of two localities in eastern Montana1
- Revised and Amended Fossil Vertebrate Faunal Lists, Early Tertiary, Hoback Basin, Wyoming1
- Late Paleocene Mammals of the Tongue River Formation, Western North Dakota1
- The Fort Union of the Crazy Mountain field, Montana and its mammalian faunas1
Each of the 15 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. 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 Plesiadapis rex
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Plesiadapis rex 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPlesiadapis through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gidley 1923)