Eocardiidae

The Eocardiidae are an extinct family of caviomorph rodents from South America. The family is probably ancestral to the living family Caviidae, which includes cavies, maras, and capybaras and their relatives. McKenna and Bell (1997) divided eocardiids into two subfamilies, Luantinae for two of the oldest genera and Eocardiinae for remaining genera. Kramarz (2006) has recommended the abandonment of these subfamilies, as the genera placed in Luantinae appear to represent basal eocardiids, rather than a specialized side branch. The latter hypothesis had been proposed by Wood and Patterson (1959).

Eocardiidae

R. Bruce Horsfall · Public Domain · 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
CavioideaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 5.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 21 Mya to 15.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 29 Mya to 11 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 30 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 29 of 30 occurrencesMiocene30–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 12 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 10 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 1 occurrence14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21 Mya15.5 Mya29.5 Mya10.5 Mya

30 occurrences of Eocardiidae 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

30 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

7 formations

Santa Cruz — 51.02°S, 69.15°WSanta Cruz — 50.05°S, 70.44°WSanta Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.10°WSanta Cruz — 50.75°S, 69.18°WSanta Cruz — 51.34°S, 69.02°WSanta Cruz — 47.52°S, 71.90°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.22°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.28°WSanta Cruz — 50.16°S, 69.68°WCollón Cura — 41.00°S, 70.58°WCollón Cura — 40.39°S, 70.21°WCollón Cura — 41.17°S, 70.67°WCollón Cura — 40.09°S, 70.84°WPinturas — 47.03°S, 70.61°WPinturas — 48.90°S, 70.17°WPinturas — 48.97°S, 71.40°WCura-Mallín — 37.65°S, 71.23°WGalera — 46.90°S, 72.30°WRío Jeinemení — 46.79°S, 71.83°WSarmiento — 45.23°S, 67.49°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Eocardiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Eocardiidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Eocardiidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

241 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Eocardiidae, 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

17 references

Each of the 30 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. 5 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 content1

Picture of Eocardiidae

Credit
R. Bruce Horsfall
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Eocardiidae 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 itCavioidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ameghino 1891)