Morganucodon

Morganucodon is an early mammaliaform genus that lived from the Late Triassic to the Middle Jurassic. It first appeared about 205 million years ago. Unlike many other early mammaliaforms, Morganucodon is well represented by abundant and well-preserved material. Most of this comes from Glamorgan in Wales, but fossils have also been found in Yunnan Province in China and various parts of Europe and North America. Some closely related animals (Megazostrodon) are known from exquisite fossils from South Africa.

Morganucodon

Stephan Lautenschlager, Pamela Gill, Zhe-Xi Luo, Michael J. Fagan, Emily J. Rayfield · CC BY 4.0 · 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
MorganucodontidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 168.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 165.3 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 4 of 14 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 9 of 14 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 14 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic207–205 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences205–204 Mya — about 1 occurrence204–202 Mya — about 1 occurrence202–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–200 Mya — about 2 occurrences200–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–197 Mya — about 1 occurrence197–195 Mya — about 1 occurrence195–194 Mya — about 1 occurrence194–193 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences193–191 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences191–190 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences190–188 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences188–187 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences187–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences169–167 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences166–164 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences201.4 Mya168.2 Mya206.5 Mya164.5 Mya

14 occurrences of Morganucodon on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

14 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

4 formations

Lufeng — 25.17°N, 102.11°EKlettgau — 47.71°N, 8.45°EKayenta — 35.76°N, 111.08°WForest Marble — 50.71°N, 2.78°W

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The named rock units Morganucodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Morganucodon and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Morganucodon and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

120 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Morganucodon, 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

9 references

Each of the 14 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 content3

Picture of Morganucodon

Credit
Stephan Lautenschlager, Pamela Gill, Zhe-Xi Luo, Michael J. Fagan, Emily J. Rayfield
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Morganucodon watsoni · NHMUK:PAL:PV M 92843

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itMorganucodontidae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kuehne 1949