Barytherium

Barytherium is a genus of an extinct genus of large primitive proboscideans that lived during the late Eocene and early Oligocene in North Africa. The type species is Barytherium grave, found at the beginning of the 20th century in Fayum, Egypt. Since then, more complete specimens have been found at Dor el Talha, Libya. More fossils were also discovered in 2011 in the Aidum area in Dhofar by Oman's Ministry of Heritage and Culture, which was named Barytherium omansi.

Barytherium

Sneaking stoat 2 · 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
BarytheriidaePBDB
Diet
grazer, browserPBDB, for Proboscidea
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Proboscidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 14 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 41.03 Mya and 27.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 6 of 7 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesOligocene41–41 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41.5 Mya26.8 Mya

7 occurrences of Barytherium 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

7 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

4 formations

Qasr el-Sagha — 29.62°N, 30.69°EIdam Unit — 25.71°N, 18.18°EJebel Qatrani — 29.64°N, 30.58°EAridal — 25.09°N, 13.89°W

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The named rock units Barytherium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Barytherium and its relatives

Eocene

Where Barytherium and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

91 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Barytherium, 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

6 references

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 Barytherium

Credit
Sneaking stoat 2
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Barytherium 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 itBarytheriidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Andrews 1901