Xiphodon

Xiphodon is the type genus of the extinct Palaeogene artiodactyl family Xiphodontidae. It, like other xiphodonts, was endemic to Western Europe and lived from the Middle Eocene up to the earliest Oligocene. Fossils from Montmartre in Paris, France that belonged to X. gracilis were first described by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1804. Although he assigned the species to Anoplotherium, he recognized that it differed from A. commune by its dentition and limb bones, later moving it to its own subgenus in 1822. Xiphodon was promoted to genus rank by other naturalists in later decades. It is today defined by the type species X. gracilis and two other species, X. castrensis and X. intermedium.

Xiphodon

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
XiphodontidaePBDB
Diet
folivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 7.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 41.03 Mya and 33.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 28 of 28 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 28 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences41.5 Mya33.4 Mya

28 occurrences of Xiphodon on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

28 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

Bembridge Limestone — 50.67°N, 1.53°WCollegats — 42.25°N, 1.08°E

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The named rock units Xiphodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Xiphodon and its relatives

Eocene

Where Xiphodon and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

207 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Xiphodon, 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

11 references

Each of the 28 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 Xiphodon

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Xiphodon was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource was 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 itXiphodontidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1822