Protylopus

Protylopus is an extinct genus of camel that lived during middle to late Eocene some 50-40 million years ago in North America.

Protylopus

R. Bruce Horsfall · Public Domain · 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
OromerycidaePBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Oromerycidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Oromerycidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla

Time the record covers

At most 8.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 45.9 Mya and 37 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 35 of 35 occurrencesEocene46–46 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 2 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 2 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 2 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 2 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences46.4 Mya36.5 Mya

35 occurrences of Protylopus on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

35 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

8 formations

Santiago — 33.40°N, 117.51°WSantiago — 33.13°N, 117.29°WSantiago — 33.19°N, 117.32°WSantiago — 32.90°N, 117.10°WSespe — 34.30°N, 119.00°WUinta — 40.07°N, 109.28°WUinta — 40.17°N, 109.93°WUinta — 40.07°N, 109.70°WMission Valley — 32.90°N, 117.10°WDevil's Graveyard — 29.90°N, 104.20°WWashakie — 41.70°N, 109.00°WStadium — 32.78°N, 117.15°WPomerado — 32.92°N, 117.07°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Protylopus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Protylopus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Protylopus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

285 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Protylopus, 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

Each of the 35 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 content2

Picture of Protylopus

Credit
R. Bruce Horsfall
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Protylopus stocki · SDNHM:Paleo:60369

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 itOromerycidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wortman 1898