Archaeohyracidae
Archaeohyracidae is an extinct family of notoungulate mammals known from the Paleocene through the Oligocene of South America. First named in 1897, it is now thought to be paraphyletic, rather than a genuine group of closely related animals with a single, unique, ancestor.

Ghedoghedo · 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
- TypotherioideaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Notoungulata
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 27 million years on record.
The record covers at least 56 Mya to 29 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 57 Mya to 15.98 Mya.
94 occurrences of Archaeohyracidae 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
94 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
12 formations
- Sarmiento Formation29
- Abanico Formation9
- Geste Formation · Pastos Grande Group5
- Quebrada de los Colorados Formation · Payogastilla Group4
- Fray Bentos Formation3
- Las Chacras Formation3
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The named rock units Archaeohyracidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Archaeohyracidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Archaeohyracidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
504 taxa- Pseudhyrax eutrachytheroides12 sites
- Archaeohyrax patagonicus10 sites
- Antepithecus brachystephanus9 sites
- Meteutatus lagenaformis8 sites
- Notoungulata8 sites
- Archaeotypotherium propheticus7 sites
- Argyrohyrax proavus7 sites
- Eopachyrucos pliciformis7 sites
- Toxodontia7 sites
- Dasypodidae6 sites
- Eohyrax6 sites
- Litopterna6 sites
- Meteutatus6 sites
- Notopithecus adapinus6 sites
- Notostylops murinus6 sites
- Protarchaeohyrax gracilis6 sites
- Santiagorothia chiliensis6 sites
- Trachytherus spegazzinianus6 sites
- Barrancatatus rigidus5 sites
- Eohyrax isotemnoides5 sites
- Eomorphippus obscurus5 sites
- Henricosbornia lophodonta5 sites
- Isotemnidae5 sites
- Oldfieldthomasia debilitata5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 56 sites for Archaeohyracidae, 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
26 references- The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part II18
- Large archaeohyracids (Typotheria, Notoungulata) from central Chile and Patagonia including a revision of Archaeotypotherium13
- Rodent-like notoungulates (Typotheria) from Gran Barranca, Chubut Province, Argentina: phylogeny and systematics12
- Small archaeohyracids from Chubut Province, Argentina and central Chile: implications for trans-Andean temporal correlation6
- The Pre-Oligocene Diversity of Hypsodont Typotherians (Mammalia, Notoungulata) in Northwestern Argentina5
- Biostratigraphy of the Casamayoran, Early Eocene of Patagonia5
- Craniodental anatomy of late Oligocene archaeohyracids (Notoungulata, Mammalia) from Bolivia and Argentina and new phylogenetic hypotheses4
- Eocene mammals from volcaniclastic deposits of the Somun Cura Plateau: biostratigraphic implications for north Patagonia Paleogene3
- New data on the diversity of Notoungulata (Mammalia) from the Fray Bentos Formation (Late Oligocene) in Corrientes Province, Argentina3
- Eocene archaeohyracids (Mammalia: Notoungulata: Hegetotheria) from the Puna, northwest Argentina3
- The Egidio Feruglio's collection in the Museum of Geology and Palaeontology of the University of Padova: its importance to the knowledge of Cenozoic mammals from South America2
- Deseadan Archaeohyracidae (Notoungulata) from Quebrada Fiera (Mendoza, Argentina) in the Paleobiogeographic Context of the South American Late Oligocene2
Each of the 94 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. 14 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 Archaeohyracidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ghedoghedo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Archaeohyracidae 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
- 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 itTypotherioidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1897