Hondadelphys

Hondadelphys is an extinct genus of carnivorous sparassodonts, known from the Middle Miocene of Colombia. The type species, H. fieldsi, was described in 1976 from the fossil locality of La Venta, which hosts fossils from the Villavieja Formation. Hondadelphys was originally interpreted as belonging to the opossum family Didelphidae, but subsequently assigned to its own family, Hondadelphidae and interpreted as a basal sparassodont. The genus name refers to the Honda Group, the stratigraphic group in which the fossils of this animal were first found, combined with delphys (Greek for "womb", a common suffix used for opossum-like metatherians).

Hondadelphys

Dave Strauss · CC BY 3.0 · 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
HondadelphidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Sparassodonta
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Theria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Sparassodonta

Time the record covers

At most 2.8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 13.8 Mya and 11 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 7 of 7 occurrencesMiocene14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14.3 Mya10.5 Mya

7 occurrences of Hondadelphys 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

7 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

Villavieja — 3.22°N, 75.22°WVillavieja — 3.28°N, 75.20°WLa Victoria — 3.30°N, 75.15°W

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The named rock units Hondadelphys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hondadelphys and its relatives

Miocene

Where Hondadelphys and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

44 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Hondadelphys, 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

2 references

Each of the 7 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Hondadelphys

Credit
Dave Strauss
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hondadelphys 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 itHondadelphidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Marshall 1976