Pliopontos

Pliopontos is a genus of river dolphins that lived during the Miocene-Pliocene epochs in what are now the coasts of Chile and Peru. It contains a single species, Pliopontos littoralis, described in 1983 and known from the highly fossiliferous Pisco Formation. Additional remains attributable to the genus have been found in the Bahía Inglesa Formation and Coquimbo Formation.

Pliopontos

Uncredited · 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
PontoporiidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Odontoceti
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
Environment
marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti

Time the record covers

At least 1.9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Miocene — about 4 of 6 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 6 occurrencesPliocene12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.7–9.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.4–9.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.1–8.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.8–8.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.5–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–7.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.9–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.3–7.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences7.0–6.7 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.7–6.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.4–6.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.1–5.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.8–5.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.5–5.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.2–4.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.9–4.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.6–4.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.3–4.0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.0–3.7 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.7–3.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.246 Mya5.333 Mya12.1 Mya3.1 Mya

6 occurrences of Pliopontos 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

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

Coquimbo — 29.98°S, 71.39°WCoquimbo — 29.97°S, 71.35°WBahía Inglesa — 27.14°S, 70.88°WBahía Inglesa — 27.16°S, 70.89°WPisco — 15.58°S, 74.72°WYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°W

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The named rock units Pliopontos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Pliopontos and its relatives

Miocene

Where Pliopontos and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

512 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Pliopontos, 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

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. 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 Pliopontos

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Pliopontos 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.

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 itPontoporiidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Muizon 1983