Merycoides

Merycoides is an extinct genus of oreodont of the subfamily Merycoidodontinae endemic to North America. It lived during the Oligocene to Late Miocene, 30.8—16.0 mya, existing for approximately 15 million years. Fossils have been uncovered throughout the western U.S. as well as Florida.

Merycoides

Internet Archive Book Images · No restrictions · 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
EporeodontinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Merycoidodontidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Merycoidodontidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla

Time the record covers

At least 11 million years on record.

The record covers at least 29.5 Mya to 18.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 31.8 Mya to 16.3 Mya.

Oligocene — about 8 of 23 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 15 of 23 occurrencesMiocene32–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence23–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29.5 Mya18.5 Mya32.3 Mya15.8 Mya

23 occurrences of Merycoides 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

23 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

6 formations

John Day — 44.70°N, 119.63°WJohn Day — 44.90°N, 120.20°WMarsland — 42.10°N, 105.00°WMarsland — 42.00°N, 104.20°WMarsland — 42.62°N, 104.40°WGering — 41.80°N, 103.80°WRosebud — 43.30°N, 102.50°WRenova — 46.00°N, 112.00°WArikaree — 43.20°N, 107.10°W

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The named rock units Merycoides has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Merycoides and its relatives

Miocene

Where Merycoides and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

134 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Merycoides, 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

12 references

Each of the 23 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 content1

Picture of Merycoides

Credit
Internet Archive Book Images
Licence
No restrictions
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Merycoides was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itEporeodontinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Douglass 1907