Erethizon dorsatum

The North American porcupine, also known as the Canadian porcupine, is a large quill-covered rodent in the New World porcupine family. It is the second largest rodent in North America after the North American beaver. The porcupine is a caviomorph rodent whose ancestors were believed to have crossed the Atlantic from Africa to Brazil 30 million years ago, and then migrated to North America during the Great American Interchange after the Isthmus of Panama rose 3 million years ago.

Erethizon dorsatum

Uncredited · 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
Also called
North American porcupinePBDB
Sits inside
ErethizonPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Erethizontidae
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Erethizon
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 198 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesPleistocene — about 44 of 50 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 6 of 50 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–1.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.0–924 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 26 occurrences210 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

50 occurrences of Erethizon dorsatum on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

50 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

2 formations

Tacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°W

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The named rock units Erethizon dorsatum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 48 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Erethizon dorsatum and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Erethizon dorsatum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

840 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 50 sites for Erethizon dorsatum, 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

40 references

Each of the 50 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. 28 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 content2

Picture of Erethizon dorsatum

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itErethizon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)