Scalopus

Kenneth Catania, Vanderbilt University · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- ScalopiniPBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Talpidae
- Life habit
- fossorialPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 4.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
78 occurrences of Scalopus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
78 occurrences- Miocene7%
- Pliocene20%
- Pleistocene71%
- Holocene3%
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
- Rexroad Formation7
- Blanco Formation3
- Ceja Formation2
- Palomas Formation2
- Camp Rice Formation2
- Fort Hancock Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Scalopus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 59 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Scalopus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Scalopus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,121 taxa- Odocoileus virginianus30 sites
- Dasypus bellus27 sites
- Equus26 sites
- Procyon lotor26 sites
- Neotoma floridana25 sites
- Peromyscus23 sites
- Cryptotis parva21 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus21 sites
- Sylvilagus floridanus21 sites
- Mephitis mephitis19 sites
- Microtus18 sites
- Neotoma17 sites
- Lynx rufus16 sites
- Mammut americanum16 sites
- Microtus pinetorum16 sites
- Platygonus16 sites
- Synaptomys cooperi16 sites
- Eptesicus fuscus15 sites
- Geomys15 sites
- Neofiber alleni15 sites
- Sciurus carolinensis15 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus15 sites
- Sylvilagus15 sites
- Blarina brevicauda14 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 78 sites for Scalopus, 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
39 references- A late Pleistocene and early Holocene mammalian fauna from Little Beaver Cave, Central Ozarks, Missouri.8
- Chronology of Florida Pleistocene mammals7
- Moles of the genus Scalopus (Mammalia: Soricomorpha: Talpidae) from the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene (Blancan) of New Mexico6
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals6
- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna6
- Historical Biogeography of Florida Pleistocene Mammals3
- Vertebrate Fossils From the Blanco Local Fauna of Texas3
- Hibbard, 19703
- A new early Pleistocene tapir (Mammalia: Perissodactyla) from Florida, with a review of Blancan tapirs from around the state2
- Small mammals (Insectivora, Lagomorpha, and Rodentia) from the early Pleistocene (early Irvingtonian) Leisey Shell Pit Local Fauna, Hillsborough County, Florida2
- Sabertooth cat, Smilodon floridanus (Leidy), and associated fauna from a Tennessee Cave (40 Dv 40), the First American Bank site2
- Geology and Paleontology of the Early Pleistocene (Late Blancan) White Rock Fauna from North-Central Kansas2
Each of the 78 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. 27 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 content3

Picture of Scalopus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Kenneth Catania, Vanderbilt University
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Sequential Section Scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- MCZ Special Collections
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Scalopus aquaticus · MCZ:SC:3044
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itScalopini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Geoffroy 1803