Zaglossus

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- TachyglossidaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Tachyglossidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At least 2.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
7 occurrences of Zaglossus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
7 occurrences- Pliocene14%
- Pleistocene86%
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.
Zaglossus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Zaglossus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
115 taxa- Thylacoleo carnifex5 sites
- Simosthenurus occidentalis4 sites
- Macropus (Macropus) giganteus3 sites
- Metasthenurus newtonae3 sites
- Procoptodon rapha3 sites
- Pseudomys3 sites
- Thylacinus cynocephalus3 sites
- Aepyprymnus rufescens2 sites
- Antechinus2 sites
- Bettongia2 sites
- Diprotodon optatum2 sites
- Macropus goliah2 sites
- Mastacomys2 sites
- Perameles2 sites
- Perameles bougainville2 sites
- Potorous tridactylus2 sites
- Procoptodon pusio2 sites
- Protemnodon anak2 sites
- Pseudocheirus2 sites
- Rattus2 sites
- Sarcophilus laniarius2 sites
- Simosthenurus maddocki2 sites
- Simosthenurus pales2 sites
- Sthenurus andersoni2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Zaglossus, 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
5 references- Notes on the occurrence of monotreme remains in the Pliocene of New South Wales3
- Early Pleistocene mammals from the Nelson Baylocal fauna, Portland, Victoria, Australia1
- The upper fossil fauna of the Henschke fossil cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- Warendja wakefieldi, a new genus of wombat (Maruspialia , Vombatidae) from Pleistocene sediments in McEacherns Cave, western Victoria1
- Studies in Tasmanian mammals, living and extinct. Number V, Zaglossus harrissoni, sp. nov.1
Each of the 7 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 Zaglossus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Zaglossus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTachyglossidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gill 1877