Dacrytherium

Dacrytherium is an extinct genus of Palaeogene artiodactyls belonging to the family Anoplotheriidae. It occurred from the Middle to Late Eocene of Western Europe and is the type genus of the subfamily Dacrytheriinae, the older of the two anoplotheriid subfamilies. Dacrytherium was first erected in 1876 by the French palaeontologist Henri Filhol, who recognised in his studies that it had dentition similar to the anoplotheriids Anoplotherium and Diplobune but differed from them by a deep preorbital fossa and a lacrimal fossa, the latter of which is where the genus name derives from. D. ovinum, originally classified in Dichobune, is the type species of Dacrytherium. Henri Filhol named D. elegans in 1884, and Hans Georg Stehlin named the species D. priscum and D. saturnini in 1910.

Dacrytherium

Ghedoghedo · 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
Sits inside
DacrytheriinaePBDB
Diet
folivorePBDB, for Anoplotheriidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Anoplotheriidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Anoplotheriidae

Time the record covers

At least 7.1 million years on record.

The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 27.3 Mya.

Eocene — about 28 of 29 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 29 occurrencesOligocene49–48 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 3 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 3 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 3 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 3 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41.03 Mya33.9 Mya48.6 Mya26.8 Mya

29 occurrences of Dacrytherium 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

29 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

5 formations

Perriere — 44.37°N, 1.73°ECollegats — 42.25°N, 1.08°ECreechbarrow Limestone — 50.65°N, 2.12°WPerrière — 44.38°N, 1.43°EMazaterón — 41.53°N, 2.12°W

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The named rock units Dacrytherium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dacrytherium and its relatives

Eocene

Where Dacrytherium and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

317 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Dacrytherium, 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

9 references

Each of the 29 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 Dacrytherium

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dacrytherium 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 itDacrytheriinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Filhol