Creodonta

Creodonta is a former order of extinct carnivorous placental mammals that lived from the Early Paleocene to the Late Miocene epochs in North America, Eurasia, and Africa. Originally thought to be a single group of animals ancestral to the modern Carnivora, this order is now usually considered a polyphyletic assemblage of two different groups, the oxyaenids and the hyaenodonts, not a natural group. Oxyaenids are first known from the early Paleocene of North America, while hyaenodonts hail from the late Paleocene, or Late Cretaceous, of Europe.

Creodonta

Mr Fink ( talk ) · CC BY-SA 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
Also called
creodontPBDB
Sits inside
FeraePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Theria
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 50 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 10 of 51 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 51 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 27 of 51 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 51 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 8 of 51 occurrencesMiocene73–71 Mya — about 1 occurrence71–69 Mya — about 3 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 3 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 1 occurrence59–57 Mya — about 1 occurrence57–55 Mya — about 5 occurrences55–52 Mya — about 7 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 5 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–46 Mya — about 2 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–42 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences31–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences23–21 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 1 occurrence19–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 3 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66 Mya15.98 Mya73 Mya10 Mya

51 occurrences of Creodonta 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

51 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

26 formations

Wasatch — 41.70°N, 109.00°WWasatch — 40.60°N, 108.10°WScollard — 51.91°N, 112.97°WScollard — 51.80°N, 113.00°WMaboko — 0.13°S, 34.61°EMaboko — 0.15°N, 34.62°EHell Creek — 46.30°N, 104.50°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 46.33°N, 103.90°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.33°WGlib Zegdou — 30.00°N, 4.00°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 43.80°N, 104.62°WPaskapoo — 51.90°N, 113.30°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WSan Jose — 36.50°N, 107.00°WUlan Shireh — 42.52°N, 110.97°EFrenchman — 49.30°N, 108.40°WCoalspur — 53.00°N, 116.80°WMuhroni Agglomerates — 0.14°S, 35.21°EIrdin Manha — 42.00°N, 112.00°EBlackheath Beds — 51.43°N, 0.15°EWillwood — 44.58°N, 108.65°WIdam Unit — 25.71°N, 18.18°EJebel Qatrani — 29.50°N, 30.50°ENomogen — 43.37°N, 110.75°ESilveirinha — 40.01°N, 8.82°WJbel Guersif — 31.61°N, 5.66°WHiwegi — 0.41°S, 34.15°EVihowa — 30.08°N, 70.33°EBellmunt — 42.17°N, 2.01°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Creodonta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Creodonta and its relatives

Eocene

Where Creodonta and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

939 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 50 sites for Creodonta, 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

36 references

Each of the 51 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. 24 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 Creodonta

Credit
Mr Fink ( talk )
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Creodonta sp. · dpc:21460

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itFerae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1875)