Coniopternium

Coniopternium is an extinct genus of macraucheniids from the Late Oligocene of South America. Fossils of Coniopternium have been found in the Agua de la Piedra, Deseado, and Sarmiento Formations of Argentina, the Salla Formation of Bolivia, and the Moquegua Formation of Peru.

Coniopternium

Schmidt et al., 2019 · CC BY 3.0 · 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
CramaucheniinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Litopterna
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 29 Mya and 21 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 4 of 5 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesMiocene29–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29.5 Mya20.5 Mya

5 occurrences of Coniopternium on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

5 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

3 formations

Upper Moquegua — 17.23°S, 71.03°WSalla — 17.18°S, 67.63°WAgua de la Piedra — 36.55°S, 69.70°W

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The named rock units Coniopternium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coniopternium and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Coniopternium and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

90 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Coniopternium, 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

Each of the 5 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 Coniopternium

Credit
Schmidt et al., 2019
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Coniopternium 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 itCramaucheniinae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1894