Protapirus
Protapirus is an extinct genus of tapir known from the Oligocene and Miocene of North America and Eurasia.

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 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
- TapiridaePBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Tapiridae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Tapiridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 31.8 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 15.98 Mya.
19 occurrences of Protapirus on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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
19 occurrencesThese 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
6 formations
- Brule Formation4
- Rosebud Formation1
- Bohlen Formation1
- Ebnater Schichten Formation1
- Wintersberg Schichten Formation1
- Catahoula Formation1
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The named rock units Protapirus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Protapirus and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Protapirus and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
218 taxa- Eomys5 sites
- Ronzotherium5 sites
- Amphitragulus quercyi3 sites
- Dremotherium guthi3 sites
- Microbunodon minimum3 sites
- Peridyromys murinus3 sites
- Adelomyarion vireti2 sites
- Anthracotherium magnum2 sites
- Archaeomys2 sites
- Babameryx engesseri2 sites
- Cephalogale2 sites
- Cryptotopos communis2 sites
- Diaceratherium lamilloquense2 sites
- Dremotherium quercyi2 sites
- Eomys antiquus2 sites
- Issiodoromys2 sites
- Lophallomys atavus2 sites
- Melissiodon quercyi2 sites
- Microdyromys praemurinus2 sites
- Percymygale minor2 sites
- Percymygale vauclusensis2 sites
- Steneofiber2 sites
- Testudinidae2 sites
- Adelpharctos mirus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Protapirus, 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- Tapiridae (Perissodactyla, Mammalia) of the Swiss Molasse Basin during the Oligocene–Miocene transition8
- Large mammals from Rickenbach (Switzerland, reference locality MP29, Late Oligocene): biostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental implications2
- New genus of tapir (Mammalia: Tapiridae) from the Arikareean (earliest Miocene) of the Texas Coastal Plain2
- Ancestors of the tapir from the lower Miocene of Dakota2
- Mammals of the early Arikareean (“middle” Oligocene) Jones Branch Local Fauna, southeastern Mississippi, USA, with notes on two older taxa from the state and the timing of Midcontinent–Gulf Coastal Plain biotic disparity1
- The European Ruminants during the "Microbunodon Event" (MP28, Latest Oligocene): Impact of Climate Changes and Faunal Event on the Ruminant Evolution1
- Records of Tapiroidea Gray, 1825 (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) from Kazakhstan – An overview1
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals1
- The ruminants (Artiodactyla, Mammalia) from the Lower Miocene of Cetina de Aragon (Province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain)1
Each of the 19 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 Protapirus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- UIPaleoRepository
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Protapirus”
- 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 itTapiridae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Filhol 1877