Diatryma gigantea
via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- DiatrymaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Diatryma
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Diatryma
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diatryma
Time the record covers
At most 4.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 51.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
9 occurrences of Diatryma gigantea 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
9 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Diatryma gigantea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Diatryma gigantea and its relatives
EoceneWhere Diatryma gigantea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
17 taxa- Apheliscus wapitiensis1 site
- Arenahippus aemulor1 site
- Axestemys byssinus1 site
- Cantius1 site
- Cantius abditus1 site
- Copecion brachypternus1 site
- Diacodexis1 site
- Didymictis1 site
- Esthonyx bisulcatus1 site
- Hyopsodus1 site
- Melanosaurus maximus1 site
- Pachyaena ossifraga1 site
- Phenacodus1 site
- Phenacolemurinae1 site
- Prototomus1 site
- Sifrhippus grangeri1 site
- Tritemnodon strenuus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Diatryma gigantea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Biomechanics of the jaw apparatus of the gigantic Eocene bird Diatryma: implications for diet and mode of life7
- Omorhamphus, a new flightless bird from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming1
- The skeleton of Diatryma, a gigantic bird from the Lower Eocene of Wyoming1
Each of the 9 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 Diatryma gigantea
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Diatryma gigantea 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDiatryma through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1876