Triisodon

Triisodon is a genus of an extinct family of hoofed mammals known as Triisodontidae. Triisodon existed during the Early Paleocene of New Mexico, North America, from about 63.5-62.0 Ma. The genus was named by Edward Drinker Cope in 1881 as a member of the Creodonta, a now invalid group that encompassed hyaenodonts, oxyaenids, mesonychians and certain arctocyonians. Cope described the type specimen of T. quivirensis as "about the size of a wolf." A smaller species, T. crassicuspis, has also been identified from the same region. Since material from this genus is incomplete, the exact size of adults and whether they showed sexual dimorphism or regional variations in size is unknown.

Triisodon

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
TriisodontidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Triisodontidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 2.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 63.4 Mya and 60.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Paleocene — about 12 of 12 occurrencesPaleocene63–63 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63.9 Mya60.4 Mya

12 occurrences of Triisodon 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

12 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

1 formation

Nacimiento — 36.30°N, 108.20°WNacimiento — 36.57°N, 107.97°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WNacimiento — 36.27°N, 107.76°W

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

Triisodon and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Triisodon and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

71 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Triisodon, 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

4 references

Each of the 12 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 content1

Picture of Triisodon

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

No 3D scan of Triisodon 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 itTriisodontidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1881