Propalaehoplophorus
Propalaehoplophorus, also written as Propalaeohoplophorus, is an extinct genus of glyptodont, which lived in South America during the Early Miocene epoch.

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 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
- PropalaehoplophoridaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Xenarthra
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Xenarthra
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 3.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 17.5 Mya to 13.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 21 Mya to 11 Mya.
13 occurrences of Propalaehoplophorus 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
13 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Propalaehoplophorus 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.
Propalaehoplophorus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Propalaehoplophorus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
184 taxa- Adinotherium6 sites
- Nesodon6 sites
- Acarechimys minutus5 sites
- Neoreomys australis5 sites
- Acarechimys minutissimus4 sites
- Astrapotherium4 sites
- Cochlops muricatus4 sites
- Hapalops4 sites
- Peltephilus pumilus4 sites
- Proeutatus4 sites
- Prozaedyus4 sites
- Prozaedyus proximus4 sites
- Thoatherium minusculum4 sites
- Acarechimys constans3 sites
- Adinotherium ovinum3 sites
- Borhyaena tuberata3 sites
- Cladosictis patagonica3 sites
- Eucholoeops ingens3 sites
- Hegetotherium mirabile3 sites
- Homunculus patagonicus3 sites
- Interatherium extensus3 sites
- Nesodon imbricatus3 sites
- Perimys erutus3 sites
- Proeutatus oenophorum3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Propalaehoplophorus, 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
9 references- Paleobiology of Santacrucian glyptodonts and armadillos (Xenarthra, Cingulata)5
- Fossil localities of the Santa Cruz Formation (Early Miocene, Patagonia, Argentina) prospected by Carlos Ameghino in 1887 revisited and the location of the Notohippidian1
- A review of the paleoenvironment and paleoecology of the Miocene Santa Cruz Formation1
- Two new fossil vertebrate localities in the Santa Cruz Formation (late early – early middle Miocene, Argentina), ~ 51° South latitude1
- A new fossil mammal assemblage from the southern Chilean Andes: implications for geology, geochronology, and tectonics1
- Bioestratigrafía de la Formación Santa Cruz (Mioceno Inferior) en el extremo sudeste de la Patagonia1
- Fossil Marsupialia from the type Friasian Land Mammal Age (Miocene), Alto Rio Cisnes, Aisen, Chile1
- The Miocene vertebrates of Quebrada Honda, Bolivia. Part II. Edentata.1
- Sur quelques Glyptodontidae nouveaux (Mammalia, Edentata) du Déséadien (Oligocène infeìrieur) de Patagonie (Argentine)1
Each of the 13 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 Propalaehoplophorus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Propalaehoplophorus 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 itPropalaehoplophoridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1887