Astrapothericulus
Astrapothericulus is an extinct genus of mammals, belonging to the order Astrapotheria. It lived during the Lower Miocene in what is now South America.

J. Enrique Bostelmann, Jacobus Philippus Le Roux, Ana Vasquez, Hervé F. · CC BY 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
- AstrapotheriidaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Astrapotheria
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 5.1 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 21 Mya and 15.98 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Astrapothericulus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
3 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Astrapothericulus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Astrapothericulus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Astrapothericulus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- Propalaehoplophoridae2 sites
- Adelphomys candidus1 site
- Adinotherium1 site
- Asteraceae1 site
- Astrapotheriidae1 site
- Astrapotheriinae1 site
- Cariamidae1 site
- Cavioidea1 site
- Chenopodiaceae1 site
- Cyatheaceae1 site
- Folivora1 site
- Megalonychidae1 site
- Myrtaceae1 site
- Nesodon1 site
- Nothofagaceae1 site
- Notohippus toxodontoides1 site
- Onagraceae1 site
- Paramacrauchenia scamnata1 site
- Parastrapotherium1 site
- Perimys incavatus1 site
- Poaceae1 site
- Podocarpaceae1 site
- Proadinotherium muensteri1 site
- Proeutatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Astrapothericulus, 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
3 references- Burdigalian deposits of the Santa Cruz Formation in the Sierra Baguales, Austral (Magallanes) Basin: Age, depositional environment and vertebrate fossils1
- Adiciones al conocimiento de Astrapothericulus (Mammalia, Astrapotheria): anatomia craneo-dentaria, diversidad y distribucion1
- Estratigrafía y vertebrados (Aves y Mammalia) de la Formación Cerro Bandera, Mioceno Temprano de la Provincia del Neuquén, Argentina1
Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Astrapothericulus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- J. Enrique Bostelmann, Jacobus Philippus Le Roux, Ana Vasquez, Hervé F.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Astrapothericulus 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 itAstrapotheriidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1902