Opisthodactylus patagonicus

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- OpisthodactylusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 1.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 17.5 Mya and 16.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Opisthodactylus patagonicus 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
6 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Opisthodactylus patagonicus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Opisthodactylus patagonicus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Opisthodactylus patagonicus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
111 taxa- Nesodon4 sites
- Adinotherium3 sites
- Cladosictis patagonica3 sites
- Nesodon imbricatus3 sites
- Sipalocyon gracilis3 sites
- Spaniomys3 sites
- Stenotatus3 sites
- Acyon tricuspidatus2 sites
- Arctodictis munizi2 sites
- Borhyaena tuberata2 sites
- Cochlops muricatus2 sites
- Diadiaphorus majusculus2 sites
- Eucholoeops ingens2 sites
- Hapalops2 sites
- Hegetotherium mirabile2 sites
- Homalodotherium2 sites
- Homunculus patagonicus2 sites
- Interatherium2 sites
- Neoreomys2 sites
- Neoreomys australis2 sites
- Palaeothentes lemoinei2 sites
- Palaeothentes minutus2 sites
- Perimys2 sites
- Phorusrhacos longissimus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Opisthodactylus patagonicus, 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
5 references- New records of birds from the Santa Cruz Formation (Early-Middle Miocene) at the Río Santa Cruz Valley, Patagonia, Argentina2
- Sedimentology and fossil vertebrates of the Santa Cruz formation (early Miocene) in Lago Posadas, southwestern Patagonia, Argentina1
- New records of birds from the Santa Cruz Formation (Early-Middle Miocene) at the Río Santa Cruz Valley, Patagonia1
- Tertiary ground birds from Patagonia (Argentina) in the Tournouër collection of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris1
- Diversity and paleobiology of the Santacrucian birds1
Each of the 6 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Opisthodactylus patagonicus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Opisthodactylus patagonicus 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 itOpisthodactylus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1891