Sinonyx

Sinonyx is a genus of extinct, superficially wolf-like mesonychid mammals from the late Paleocene of China. It is within the family Mesonychidae, and cladistic analysis of a skull of Sinonyx jiashanensis identifies its closest relative as Ankalagon. S. jiashanensis was discovered in Anhui province, China, in the Tuijinshan formation.

Sinonyx

Jonathan Chen · 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
MesonychidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Mesonychidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Mesonychidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 4.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 60.9 Mya and 56 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Paleocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences61.4 Mya55.5 Mya

2 occurrences of Sinonyx on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

2 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

2 formations

Tujinshan — 32.68°N, 117.99°EFort Union — 39.27°N, 108.18°W

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

Sinonyx and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Sinonyx and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

24 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Sinonyx, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Sinonyx

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sinonyx was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itMesonychidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zhou et al. 1995