Heterohyrax

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- rock hyraxPBDB
- Sits inside
- ProcaviidaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Procaviidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Procaviidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 9.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 9.67 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
9 occurrences of Heterohyrax 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
9 occurrences- Miocene22%
- Pliocene11%
- Pleistocene33%
- Holocene33%
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
3 formations
- Kapthurin Formation2
- Shungura Formation · Omo Group1
- Nakali Formation1
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The named rock units Heterohyrax has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Heterohyrax and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Heterohyrax and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
190 taxa- Phacochoerus aethiopicus5 sites
- Aepyceros melampus4 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus4 sites
- Connochaetes taurinus4 sites
- Crocuta crocuta4 sites
- Equus quagga burchelli4 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius4 sites
- Sylvicapra grimmia4 sites
- Syncerus caffer4 sites
- Taurotragus oryx4 sites
- Tragelaphus scriptus4 sites
- Alcelaphus3 sites
- Chlorocebus aethiops3 sites
- Clarias3 sites
- Gazella3 sites
- Mammalia3 sites
- Orycteropus afer3 sites
- Panthera leo3 sites
- Tatera3 sites
- Thryonomys3 sites
- Antidorcas2 sites
- Bos taurus2 sites
- Caracal caracal2 sites
- Caracal serval2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Heterohyrax, 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- A new species of Nyanzachoerus (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Suidae, Tetraconodontinae) from the upper Miocene Nakali Formation, Kenya1
- Earliest known procaviid hyracoid from the late Miocene of Namibia1
- Geology and fauna of the middle Miocene hominoid site at Muruyur,Baringo District,Kenya1
- Evolution and sedimentary character of lake deltas fed by ephemeral rivers in the Turkana Basin, southern Kenya1
- Later Stone Age Faunal Samples from Heuningneskrans Shelter (Transvaal) and Leopard's Hill Cave (Zambia)1
- The Omo Group: Archives of the International Omo Research Expedition1
- Serengeti: Dynamics of an Ecosystem1
- Early Pottery and Pastoral Cultures of the Central Rift Valley, Kenya1
- The Prehistory of Eastern Zambia1
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 content2

Picture of Heterohyrax
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Heterohyrax brucei · ummz:mammals:104280
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itProcaviidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1868)