Plesiolestes

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
- PlesiolestinaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, omnivorePBDB, for Plesiadapiformes
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Plesiadapiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Plesiadapiformes
Time the record covers
At most 5.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 63.4 Mya and 57.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
24 occurrences of Plesiolestes 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
24 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
8 formations
- Fort Union Formation7
- Nacimiento Formation6
- Paskapoo Formation3
- Hanna Formation2
- North Horn Formation1
- Black Peaks Formation · Tornillo Group1
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The named rock units Plesiolestes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Plesiolestes and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Plesiolestes and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
328 taxa- Promioclaenus acolytus13 sites
- Tricentes subtrigonus11 sites
- Anisonchus sectorius9 sites
- Chriacus pelvidens9 sites
- Arctocyon ferox8 sites
- Periptychus carinidens8 sites
- Promioclaenus lemuroides8 sites
- Tetraclaenodon puercensis8 sites
- Torrejonia sirokyi8 sites
- Acmeodon secans7 sites
- Diacodon puercensis7 sites
- Mixodectes malaris7 sites
- Chriacus baldwini6 sites
- Haplaletes disceptatrix6 sites
- Litomylus dissentaneus6 sites
- Nannodectes intermedius6 sites
- Paromomys depressidens6 sites
- Protictis haydenianus6 sites
- Psittacotherium multifragum6 sites
- Anconodon cochranensis5 sites
- Bessoecetor septentrionalis5 sites
- Dissacus navajovius5 sites
- Gelastops5 sites
- Goniacodon levisanus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Plesiolestes, 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- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals5
- Evolutionary History of Microsyopoidea (Mammalia, ?Primates) and the Relationship Between Plesiadapiformes and Primates5
- A new middle Paleocene (early Tiffanian) mammalian fauna from the Overland Member of the Fort Union Formation, Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, U.S.A.3
- Paleocene mammalian biostratigraphy of the Carbon Basin, southeastern Wyoming, and age constraints on local phases of tectonism2
- Paleocene vertebrate paleontology of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico2
- Early Paleocene landbird supports rapid phylogenetic and morphological diversification of crown birds after the K–Pg mass extinction1
- First mammals from the Paleocene Porcupine Hills Formation of southwestern Alberta, Canada1
- Late Torrejonian (middle Paleocene) mammals from south central Alberta, Canada1
- The Clarkforkian Land-Mammal Age and Mammalian Faunal Composition Across the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary1
- The Kutz Canyon Local Fauna, Torrejonian (Middle Paleocene) of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico;1
- Swain Quarry of the Fort Union Formation, Middle Paleocene (Torrejonian), Carbon County, Wyoming: geologic setting and mammalian fauna1
- New Paleocene Primates and a diagnosis of the new suborder Paromomyiformes1
Each of the 24 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 Plesiolestes
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Plesiolestes 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 itPlesiolestinae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jepsen 1930