Protocyon

Protocyon is an extinct genus of large canid endemic to South and Central America from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene.

Protocyon

Museo Provincial de Ciencias Naturales de Villa Escolar · 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
CaninaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Canidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Canidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 39 million years on record.

The record covers at least 39.7 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 45.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 39 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 39 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 39 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 39 occurrencesPleistocene — about 37 of 39 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.7–3.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.1–1.6 Mya — about 7 occurrences1.6–0 Mya — about 31 occurrences39.7 Mya129 ka46.8 Mya0 Mya

39 occurrences of Protocyon on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

39 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

10 formations

Tarija — 21.53°S, 64.73°WTarija — 21.50°S, 64.75°WNuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°WNuapua — 20.87°S, 63.07°WMiramar — 38.17°S, 57.65°WMiramar — 37.87°S, 57.51°WMesa — 9.85°N, 63.33°WVorohué — 38.03°S, 57.72°WSopas — 31.25°S, 57.00°WSanta Vitória — 33.74°S, 53.37°WLujan — 34.64°S, 59.30°WSanta Clara — 37.82°S, 57.48°WUinta — 40.20°N, 109.90°W

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The named rock units Protocyon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Protocyon and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Protocyon and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

409 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Protocyon, 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

21 references

Each of the 39 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. 9 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 Protocyon

Credit
Museo Provincial de Ciencias Naturales de Villa Escolar
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Protocyon was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itCaninae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Giebel 1855