Miotapirus harrisonensis

Helen Ziska · CC0 · 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- Sits inside
- MiotapirusPBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Tapiridae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Tapiridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 4.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.1 Mya and 18.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Miotapirus harrisonensis 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
3 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
2 formations
- Wildcat Hills Beds Formation · Arikaree Group2
- Marsland Formation · Hemingford Group1
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The named rock units Miotapirus harrisonensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Miotapirus harrisonensis and its relatives
MioceneWhere Miotapirus harrisonensis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
48 taxa- Alwoodia2 sites
- Archaeolagus2 sites
- Arretotherium acridens2 sites
- Barbouromeryx2 sites
- Leidymys2 sites
- Palaeocastor2 sites
- Paramerychyus harrisonensis2 sites
- Parvericius2 sites
- Pseudoblastomeryx advena2 sites
- Syndyoceras cooki2 sites
- Archaeohippus1 site
- Camelidae1 site
- Castoridae1 site
- Cephalogale1 site
- Cupidinimus1 site
- Cynarctoides acridens1 site
- Desmocyon1 site
- Dikkomys matthewi1 site
- Entoptychus grandiplanus1 site
- Florentiamys1 site
- Gregorymys formosus1 site
- Gripholagomys lavocati1 site
- Harrymys1 site
- Herpetotherium youngi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Miotapirus harrisonensis, 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- Biostratigraphy and biochronology of early Arikareean through late Hemingfordian small mammal faunas from the Nebraska Panhandle and adjacent areas2
- A New Tapir from the Lower Miocene of Wyoming1
Each of the 3 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 Miotapirus harrisonensis
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Helen Ziska
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Miotapirus harrisonensis 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMiotapirus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schlaikjer 1937