Macrocranion nitens

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- MacrocranionPBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Macroscelidea
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Macroscelidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 12 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 59.24 Mya and 48.07 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
32 occurrences of Macrocranion nitens on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
32 occurrencesThese 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
- Willwood Formation11
- Wasatch Formation8
- Wind River Formation5
- Lignites de Soissonais Formation2
- DeBeque Formation1
- San Jose Formation1
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The named rock units Macrocranion nitens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Macrocranion nitens and its relatives
EoceneWhere Macrocranion nitens and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
361 taxa- Apheliscus17 sites
- Coryphodon17 sites
- Phenacodus vortmani17 sites
- Prodiacodon tauricinerei15 sites
- Haplomylus speirianus14 sites
- Sifrhippus grangeri13 sites
- Hyopsodus12 sites
- Paramys copei12 sites
- Paramys excavatus11 sites
- Phenacodus11 sites
- Thryptacodon antiquus11 sites
- Esthonyx spatularius10 sites
- Phenacolemurinae10 sites
- Viverravus acutus10 sites
- Bunophorus9 sites
- Cantius mckennai9 sites
- Copecion brachypternus9 sites
- Knightomys depressus9 sites
- Miacis exiguus9 sites
- Paramys9 sites
- Viverravus9 sites
- Diacodexis primus8 sites
- Didelphodus absarokae8 sites
- Ectocion osbornianus8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Macrocranion nitens, 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
14 references- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals9
- Faunal Zonation of the Willwood Formation in the Central Bighorn Basin, Wyoming7
- Distribution and stratigraphic correlation of upper Paleocene and lower Eocene fossil mammal and plant localities of the Fort Union, Willwood, and Tatman formations, southern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming3
- The mammal fauna of the early Eocene Blackheath Formation of Abbey Wood, London2
- Revision of the Wind River faunas, early Eocene of central Wyoming. Part 5. Geology and biostratigraphy of the upper part of the Wind River Formation, northeastern Wind River Basin2
- Terrestrial mammals as biostratigraphic indicators in upper Paleocene-lower Eocene marine deposits of the southern North Sea Basin1
- A new species of Platychoerops (Plesiadapiformes, Mammalia) from the latest Palaeocene of the Paris, London and Belgian Basins1
- Nouveaux vertébrés sparnaciens du Conglomérat de Meudon à Meudon, France1
- Geology and mammalian paleontology of the Wind River Formation, Laramie Basin, southeastern Wyoming1
- Early Eocene Mammalian Fauna of the Piceance Creek Basin. Northwestern Colorado1
- Revision of the Wind River Faunas, Early Eocene of central Wyoming. Part 2. Geologic Setting1
- New Omomyid Primates (Haplorhini, Tarsiiformes) from Middle Eocene Rocks of West-Central Hot Springs County, Wyoming1
Each of the 32 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. 2 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 Macrocranion nitens
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Macrocranion nitens 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMacrocranion through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Matthew 1918)