Miracinonyx inexpectatus

Uncredited · 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
- MiracinonyxPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Felidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka.
18 occurrences of Miracinonyx inexpectatus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
18 occurrences- Pliocene7%
- Pleistocene93%
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
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The named rock units Miracinonyx inexpectatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Miracinonyx inexpectatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Miracinonyx inexpectatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
471 taxa- Odocoileus virginianus9 sites
- Equus8 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo7 sites
- Dasypus bellus6 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala6 sites
- Mammut americanum6 sites
- Panthera onca6 sites
- Smilodon fatalis6 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis6 sites
- Canis latrans5 sites
- Colinus virginianus5 sites
- Lynx rufus5 sites
- Mephitis mephitis5 sites
- Palaeolama mirifica5 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus5 sites
- Spilogale putorius5 sites
- Strix varia5 sites
- Tremarctos floridanus5 sites
- Ursus americanus5 sites
- Aenocyon dirus4 sites
- Lontra canadensis4 sites
- Megalonyx jeffersonii4 sites
- Neotoma floridana4 sites
- Oryzomys palustris4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Miracinonyx inexpectatus, 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
13 references- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals3
- Fossil history of the panther (Puma concolor) and the cheetah-like cat (Miracinonyx inexpectatus) in Florida3
- Dining in the Pleistocene -- who's on the menu?2
- Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Faunas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia2
- A preliminary report on the Carnivora of Porcupine Cave, Park County, Colorado1
- Overview of the geology and vertebrate biochronology of the Leisey Shell Pit Local Fauna, Hillsborough County, Florida1
- The Plio-Pleistocene Cheetah-Like Cat Miracinonyx inexpectatus of North America1
- Pleistocene mammals from Ladds, Bartow County, Georgia1
- The Moore Pit local fauna; Pleistocene of Texas1
- Additions to the Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Melbourne, Florida1
- New Mammalia in the Pleistocene fauna from Cumberland Cave1
- Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Seminole Field, Pinellas County, Florida1
Each of the 18 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 Miracinonyx inexpectatus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Laser scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Miracinonyx inexpectatus · USNM:V:11890
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 itMiracinonyx through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1895)