Scottimus

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- EucricetodontinaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 7.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 31.8 Mya to 24.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 18.5 Mya.
26 occurrences of Scottimus 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
26 occurrencesThese 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
5 formations
- Brule Formation · White River Group10
- Chadron Formation3
- Sage Creek Formation1
- Paha Sapa Limestone Formation1
- Cypress Hills Formation1
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The named rock units Scottimus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Scottimus and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Scottimus and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
303 taxa- Domnina gradata8 sites
- Eumys7 sites
- Herpetotherium fugax7 sites
- Ischyromys typus7 sites
- Leptictidae7 sites
- Palaeolagus burkei7 sites
- Paradjidaumo trilophus7 sites
- Eumys elegans6 sites
- Leptomeryx evansi6 sites
- Merycoidodontidae6 sites
- Miohippus6 sites
- Palaeolagus intermedius6 sites
- Paradjidaumo6 sites
- Adjidaumo5 sites
- Dinictis5 sites
- Domnina5 sites
- Eumys brachyodus5 sites
- Heliscomys5 sites
- Hesperocyon5 sites
- Hypisodus5 sites
- Hyracodon5 sites
- Leptochoerus5 sites
- Leptomerycidae5 sites
- Megalagus turgidus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Scottimus, 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
15 references- Geology and paleontology of the Oligocene Harris Ranch Badlands, southwestern South Dakota4
- New Oligocene rodents from western North America4
- Fossil mammals from ant mounds situated on exposures of the Big Cottonwood Creek Member of the Chadron Formation (latest Eocene - Early Oligocene), Sioux County, Nebraska3
- Stratigraphy, Structure, and Vertebrate Fossils of the Oligocene Brule Formation, Slim Buttes, Northwestern South Dakota3
- Mammals from the Blue Ash Local Fauna (Late Oligocene), South Dakota. Rodentia Part 5: Family Cricetidae2
- Rodents (Mammalia) from the Whitneyan (Middle Oligocene) Cedar Pass Fauna of South Dakota1
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals1
- Cricetid rodents of the Kealey Springs Local Fauna (early Arikareean; late Oligocene) of Saskatchewan1
- Magnetostratigraphy and biostratigraphy of the Eocene-Oligocene transition, southwestern Montana1
- The Dentition of the Paleocene "Insectivore" Genus Acmeodon Matthew and Granger (?Palaeoryctidae, Mammalia)1
- Macdonald, 19821
- Early Tertiary vertebrate faunas, Vieja Group. Trans-Pecos Texas: Agriochoeridae and Merycoidodontidae1
Each of the 26 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. 3 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 Scottimus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Scottimus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEucricetodontinae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wood 1937