Alphadon

Alphadon is an extinct genus of small, primitive mammal that was a member of the metatherians, a group of mammals that includes modern-day marsupials. Its fossils were first discovered and named by George Gaylord Simpson in 1929.

Alphadon

Uncredited · 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
AlphadontidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Theria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 37 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 110 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 109 of 110 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 110 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 110 occurrencesEocene102–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences94–92 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences87–85 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences85–83 Mya — about 2 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 9 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 9 occurrences80–78 Mya — about 9 occurrences78–76 Mya — about 9 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 9 occurrences74–72 Mya — about 9 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 14 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 15 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 15 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 8 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences93.9 Mya56 Mya102 Mya47 Mya

110 occurrences of Alphadon on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

110 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

21 formations

Hell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 47.57°N, 107.10°WHell Creek — 47.55°N, 107.10°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 106.40°WHell Creek — 47.07°N, 106.92°WHell Creek — 47.63°N, 106.20°WHell Creek — 45.50°N, 103.10°WHell Creek — 47.68°N, 106.43°WHell Creek — 45.95°N, 103.96°WHell Creek — 45.76°N, 104.92°WHell Creek — 46.45°N, 104.02°WJudith River — 47.81°N, 109.59°WJudith River — 48.93°N, 110.58°WJudith River — 48.57°N, 109.70°WJudith River — 48.93°N, 110.65°WJudith River — 46.10°N, 109.10°WJudith River — 48.01°N, 108.91°WMesaverde — 43.20°N, 107.10°WMesaverde — 44.10°N, 107.76°WMesaverde — 42.85°N, 107.28°WMesaverde — 44.08°N, 107.73°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 44.94°N, 108.85°WLance — 43.17°N, 104.53°WLance — 43.13°N, 104.49°WLance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 43.80°N, 104.62°WLance — 45.04°N, 108.80°WAguja — 29.20°N, 103.20°WAguja — 29.32°N, 103.52°WAguja — 29.10°N, 103.17°WAguja — 29.30°N, 103.57°WWahweap — 37.59°N, 112.88°WWahweap — 37.56°N, 112.28°WWahweap — 37.63°N, 112.12°WKaiparowits — 37.40°N, 111.20°WKaiparowits — 37.80°N, 111.50°WKaiparowits — 37.42°N, 111.77°WScollard — 51.91°N, 112.97°WScollard — 51.80°N, 113.00°WFruitland — 36.30°N, 108.20°WFruitland — 36.49°N, 108.54°WOjo Alamo — 36.30°N, 108.20°WKirtland — 36.30°N, 108.20°WKirtland — 36.17°N, 107.80°WNorth Horn — 39.00°N, 111.00°WFrenchman — 49.52°N, 108.82°WFrenchman — 49.30°N, 108.40°WNaturita — 37.80°N, 111.50°WOldman — 50.78°N, 110.50°WTwo Medicine — 47.82°N, 112.66°WJudith River — 49.10°N, 109.50°WFox Hills — 44.50°N, 102.30°WFruitland/Kirtland — 36.27°N, 108.21°WArgilas de Aveiro — 40.20°N, 8.50°WEagle — 48.97°N, 111.82°W

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The named rock units Alphadon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Alphadon and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Alphadon and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

586 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 92 sites for Alphadon, 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

48 references

Each of the 110 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. 36 further references are 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 content2

Picture of Alphadon

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Alphadon halleyi · mor:MOR 10913a

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itAlphadontidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Simpson 1927