Eodelphis

Eodelphis, from eo- (dawn) and [Di]delphis, thus meaning "dawn opossum", is a genus of stagodontid metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America, with distinctive crushing dentition. Named species include E. browni and the more advanced E. cutleri. Both come from the Late Campanian of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. Specimens are also known from the Judith River Formation of Montana. E. cutleri is related to the Maastrichtian genus Didelphodon as indicated by its enlarged premolars and more robust jaw. Eodelphis was probably an aquatic predator like its relative Didelphodon, and may have weighed about 0.6 kg (1.3 lb), making it one of the largest mammals of its time.

Eodelphis

Matthew, William Diller, 1871-1930. Brown, Barnum. Wortman, Jacob Lawson. · 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
StagodontidaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, durophagePBDB, for Stagodontidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Theria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Stagodontidae

Time the record covers

At least 71 million years on record.

The record covers at least 83.6 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 85.7 Mya to 7.246 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 23 of 24 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 24 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 24 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 24 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 24 occurrencesMiocene87–85 Mya — about 1 occurrence85–82 Mya — about 4 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 4 occurrences79–76 Mya — about 4 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 4 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 3 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 1 occurrence68–66 Mya — about 1 occurrence14–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–8.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences8.4–5.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83.6 Mya11.63 Mya87 Mya6 Mya

24 occurrences of Eodelphis on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

24 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

10 formations

Judith River — 47.81°N, 109.59°WJudith River — 48.93°N, 110.58°WJudith River — 46.47°N, 109.30°WJudith River — 46.10°N, 109.10°WOldman — 50.78°N, 110.50°WOldman — 49.30°N, 110.60°WOldman — 50.90°N, 111.80°WOldman — 49.10°N, 110.94°WMilk River — 49.10°N, 111.80°WSt. Mary River — 49.91°N, 112.99°WDinosaur Park — 50.73°N, 111.80°WForemost — 49.13°N, 110.87°WKaiparowits — 37.80°N, 111.50°WMashike — 43.68°N, 141.69°EHell Creek — 45.66°N, 105.08°WWapiti — 55.07°N, 118.69°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Eodelphis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Eodelphis and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Eodelphis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

279 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Eodelphis, 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 24 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 Eodelphis

Credit
Matthew, William Diller, 1871-1930. Brown, Barnum. Wortman, Jacob Lawson.
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itStagodontidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthew 1916