Apheliscus

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- ApheliscidaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Macroscelidea
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Macroscelidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 1.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 57.5 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 60.9 Mya to 48.07 Mya.
152 occurrences of Apheliscus on record. 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
152 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
8 formations
- Willwood Formation96
- Fort Union Formation13
- Wasatch Formation11
- "Wasatch" Formation7
- DeBeque Formation6
- Lower Variegated Sequence Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Apheliscus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
433 taxa- Ectocion osbornianus71 sites
- Sifrhippus grangeri57 sites
- Haplomylus speirianus55 sites
- Coryphodon46 sites
- Phenacodus intermedius46 sites
- Phenacodus vortmani45 sites
- Viverravus acutus41 sites
- Cantius mckennai37 sites
- Diacodexis metsiacus36 sites
- Hyopsodus35 sites
- Didymictis protenus34 sites
- Esthonyx bisulcatus34 sites
- Homogalax protapirinus32 sites
- Hyopsodus loomisi31 sites
- Thryptacodon antiquus31 sites
- Esthonyx spatularius30 sites
- Arctodontomys wilsoni29 sites
- Paramys copei29 sites
- Cardiolophus radinskyi28 sites
- Arfia shoshoniensis27 sites
- Prodiacodon tauricinerei27 sites
- Arenahippus aemulor26 sites
- Phenacodus25 sites
- Allognathosuchus22 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 150 sites for Apheliscus, 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
15 references- New species of Apheliscus, Haplomylus, and Hyopsodus (Mammalia, Condylarthra) from the late Paleocene of southern Montana and early Eocene of northwestern Wyoming43
- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the McCullough Peaks, northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming: Implications for biochronology, basin development, and community reorganization across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary40
- The Clarkforkian Land-Mammal Age and Mammalian Faunal Composition Across the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary27
- Faunal Zonation of the Willwood Formation in the Central Bighorn Basin, Wyoming15
- The Tiffanian Land-Mammal Age (middle and late Paleocene) in the northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming7
- Early Eocene Mammalian Fauna of the Piceance Creek Basin. Northwestern Colorado6
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals4
- Distribution and stratigraphic correlation of upper Paleocene and lower Eocene fossil mammal and plant localities of the Fort Union, Willwood, and Tatman formations, southern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming3
- A latest Paleocene mammal fauna from the Great Divide Basin in southern Wyoming and a revised biozonation of the Clarkforkian land mammal age1
- Stratigraphy, mammalian paleontology, paleoecology, and age correlation of the Wasatch Formation, Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming1
- Early Eocene (Wasatchian) rodent assemblages from the Washakie Basin, Wyoming1
- An anachronistic Clarkforkian mammal fauna from the Paleocene Fort Union Formation (Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, USA)1
Each of the 152 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. 3 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 content1

Picture of Apheliscus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Apheliscus 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 itApheliscidae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1875