Borophagus
Borophagus is an extinct genus of the subfamily Borophaginae, a group of canids endemic to North America from the Middle Miocene to the early Pleistocene (12—2Mya).

Xiaoming Wang Is a corresponding author, Stuart C White, Mairin Balisi, Jacob Biewer, Julia Sankey, Dennis Garber, Z… · 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
- BorophaginaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Canidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 6.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 9.4 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 1.4 Mya.
151 occurrences of Borophagus 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
151 occurrences- Miocene60%
- Pliocene29%
- Pleistocene11%
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
43 formations
- Peace River Formation · Hawthorn Group10
- Ogallala Formation6
- Gracias Formation4
- Rancho Viejo Beds Formation4
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group3
- Alachua Formation3
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The named rock units Borophagus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 70 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Borophagus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Borophagus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,359 taxa- Hemiauchenia29 sites
- Neohipparion eurystyle25 sites
- Plesippus simplicidens25 sites
- Platygonus24 sites
- Pleiolama vera20 sites
- Antilocapridae19 sites
- Gomphotheriidae19 sites
- Camelidae18 sites
- Megatylopus18 sites
- Aphelops mutilus16 sites
- Epicyon haydeni16 sites
- Spermophilus16 sites
- Canis lepophagus15 sites
- Dinohippus mexicanus15 sites
- Eucyon ferox15 sites
- Megalonyx15 sites
- Tayassuinae15 sites
- Alforjas14 sites
- Amphimachairodus coloradensis14 sites
- Eucyon davisi14 sites
- Teleoceras hicksi14 sites
- Astrohippus stockii13 sites
- Camelops13 sites
- Nannippus aztecus13 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 143 sites for Borophagus, 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
50 references- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals45
- Phylogenetic systematics of the Borophaginae (Carnivora: Canidae)45
- The Early-Late Hemphillian (Hh2) Faunal Assemblage From Juchipila Basin, State of Zacatecas, Mexico, and Its Biochronologic Correlation with Other Hemphillian Faunas in Central Mexico3
- Increased xenarthran diversity of the Great American Biotic Interchange: a new genus and species of ground sloth (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Megalonychidae) from the Hemphillian (late Miocene) of Jalisco, Mexico2
- Early Pliocene (Late Hemphillian) land mammals from the Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina2
- Owyhee bones: Hemphillian (latest Miocene) Little Jacks Creek (LJC) and Sugar Creek (SC) terrestrial local faunas of the western Snake River Plain, Owyhee County, Idaho2
- Biostratigraphy of Blancan and Irvingtonian mammals in the Fish Creek-Vallecito Creek section, southern California, and a review of the Blancan-Irvingtonian boundary2
- Late Tertiary Canids from Central Mexico2
- Miocene biostratigraphy and biochronology of the Dove Spring Formation, Mojave Desert, California, and characterization of the Clarendonian mammal age (late Miocene) in California2
- Biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy, late Pliocene rocks, 111 Ranch, Arizona2
- Late Cenozoic Vertebrates from Honduras and El Salvador2
- Hibbard, 19702
Each of the 151 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. 38 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 content3
Picture of Borophagus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Xiaoming Wang Is a corresponding author, Stuart C White, Mairin Balisi, Jacob Biewer, Julia Sankey, Dennis Garber, Z…
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Borophagus sp. · ucmp:v:8139
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Robert_the_whale
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Borophagus”
- 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 itBorophaginae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1892)