Tsaganomys
Tsaganomys altaicus is an extinct species of rodent from Asia, and the only species in the genus Tsaganomys.

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
- TsaganomyinaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Bathyergidae
- Life habit
- fossorialPBDB, for Bathyergidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 4.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 23.04 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 15.98 Mya.
59 occurrences of Tsaganomys 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
59 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
9 formations
- Hsanda Gol Formation36
- Xianshuihe Formation4
- Ulantatal Formation3
- Qingshuiying Formation3
- Loh Formation3
- Jiaozigou Formation2
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The named rock units Tsaganomys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tsaganomys and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Tsaganomys and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
219 taxa- Desmatolagus gobiensis24 sites
- Heosminthus chimidae17 sites
- Bohlinosminthus parvulus16 sites
- Eucricetodon asiaticus16 sites
- Palaeoscaptor acridens16 sites
- Coelodontomys asiaticus14 sites
- Cyclomylus intermedius14 sites
- Cyclomylus lohensis14 sites
- Sinolagomys kansuensis14 sites
- Tataromys sigmodon14 sites
- Palaeoscaptor tenuis13 sites
- Zaraalestes minutus13 sites
- Gobisorex kingae12 sites
- Shamosminthus sodovis12 sites
- Desmatolagus11 sites
- Heosminthus11 sites
- Desmatolagus simplex10 sites
- Eucricetodon caducus10 sites
- Heosminthus minutus10 sites
- Ulaancricetodon badamae10 sites
- Yindirtemys deflexus10 sites
- Cricetops dormitor9 sites
- Desmatolagus chinensis9 sites
- Eucricetodon bagus9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 55 sites for Tsaganomys, 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
13 references- Tsaganomyidae (Rodentia, Mammalia) from the Oligocene of Mongolia (Valley of Lakes)22
- Oligocene stratigraphy across the Eocene and Miocene boundaries in the Valley of Lakes (Mongolia)16
- Micromammal fossils from red mudstone of Lower Member of Xianshuihe Formation in Lanzhou Basin, China4
- Notes on Early Oligocene ursids (Carnivora, Mammalia) from Saint Jacques, Nei Mongol, China3
- Discovery of two mid-Tertiary mammalian faunas from Haiyuan, Ningxia, China3
- Mammal fossils from Yagou, Linxia Basin, Gansu, and related stratigraphic problems2
- Cylindrodontidae (Rodentia, Mammalia) from the Middle Oligocene of Ulantatal, Nei Mongol2
- Catalogue of Tertiary Fossil Sites of the Land Mammals in the U.S.S.R.2
- Nanpoping fauna of the Lanzhou Basin and its environmental significance1
- Oligocene rodents from the Nomogen ( =Nom Khong) Area of Nei Mongol, China, and comments on related stratigraphy1
- A New Locality Yielding Mid-Tertiary Mammals Near Lanzhou, Gansu1
- Preliminary Observations on the Oligocene Deposits and Mammalian Fauna from Alashan Zuoqi, Nei Monggol1
Each of the 59 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. 1 further reference is 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 Tsaganomys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tsaganomys 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Tsaganomys”
- 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 itTsaganomyinae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthew and Granger 1923