Pyrotherium

Pyrotherium is an extinct genus of South American ungulates, in the order Pyrotheria, that lived in what is now Argentina and Bolivia during the Late Oligocene. It was named Pyrotherium because the first specimens were excavated from an ancient volcanic ash deposit. Fossils of the genus have been found in the Deseado and Sarmiento Formations of Argentina and the Salla Formation of Bolivia.

Pyrotherium

Richard Haddad · CC BY 2.0 · 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
PyrotheridaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Pyrotheria
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 29 Mya and 21 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 13 of 17 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 4 of 17 occurrencesMiocene29–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29.5 Mya20.5 Mya

17 occurrences of Pyrotherium on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

17 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

4 formations

Sarmiento — 45.23°S, 67.49°WSarmiento — 43.75°S, 69.58°WSarmiento — 46.68°S, 68.35°WSarmiento — 47.03°S, 66.48°WSalla — 17.18°S, 67.63°WAgua de la Piedra — 36.55°S, 69.70°WDeseado — 47.90°S, 66.25°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pyrotherium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pyrotherium and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Pyrotherium and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

176 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Pyrotherium, 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 17 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 Pyrotherium

Credit
Richard Haddad
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Pyrotherium romeroi · AMNH:FM:15909

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 itPyrotheridae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1888