Oxyclaenus

Oxyclaenus is a genus of arctocyonid from the Lower Palaeocene of North America. Originally named as a subgenus of Mioclaenus, it is now regarded as a genus of its own. Three species, are known, though several more have been named over the decades.

Oxyclaenus

NGPezz · 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
ArctocyonidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Arctocyonidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Arctocyonidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 5.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 66 Mya and 60.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 27 occurrencesPaleocene — about 27 of 27 occurrencesPaleocene66–66 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences66.5 Mya60.4 Mya

27 occurrences of Oxyclaenus on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

27 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

9 formations

Nacimiento — 36.31°N, 108.00°WNacimiento — 36.30°N, 108.20°WNacimiento — 36.57°N, 107.97°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WNorth Horn — 39.10°N, 111.80°WNorth Horn — 39.00°N, 111.00°WDenver — 39.70°N, 104.70°WDenver — 38.80°N, 104.80°WFerris — 41.93°N, 106.86°WRavenscrag — 49.50°N, 109.20°WFort Union — 47.10°N, 104.80°WFort Union — 43.85°N, 108.35°WTullock — 47.80°N, 106.10°WBear — 46.20°N, 109.90°WLebo — 46.24°N, 109.69°W

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The named rock units Oxyclaenus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Oxyclaenus and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Oxyclaenus and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

277 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Oxyclaenus, 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

14 references

Each of the 27 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Oxyclaenus

Credit
NGPezz
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Oxyclaenus 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.

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 itArctocyonidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1884