Protosciurus mengi

via iDigBio · 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
- ProtosciurusPBDB
- Diet
- granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Sciuridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 4.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 29.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 18.5 Mya.
12 occurrences of Protosciurus mengi 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
12 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
3 formations
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The named rock units Protosciurus mengi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Protosciurus mengi and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Protosciurus mengi and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
217 taxa- Palaeolagus haydeni4 sites
- Altasciurus relictus3 sites
- Ansomys cyanotephrus3 sites
- Domnina3 sites
- Eporeodon occidentalis3 sites
- Heliscomys vetus3 sites
- Hesperocyon gregarius3 sites
- Ischyromys typus3 sites
- Miosciurus ballovianus3 sites
- Paroreodon parvus3 sites
- Proheteromys thorpei3 sites
- Promerycochoerus superbus3 sites
- Proscalops3 sites
- Protosciurus rachelae3 sites
- Stibarus obtusilobus3 sites
- Adjidaumo minimus2 sites
- Agriochoerus guyotianus2 sites
- Altasciurus clausulus2 sites
- Amphechinus2 sites
- Aulolithomys bounites2 sites
- Aulolithomys vexilliames2 sites
- Campestrallomys2 sites
- Campestrallomys siouxensis2 sites
- Curvellipsoentomoolithus laddi2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Protosciurus mengi, 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 rodent material from the John Day Formation (Arikareean, Middle Oligocene to Early Miocene) of Oregon5
- Sciurid rodents (Mammalia) from the Chadronian and Orellan (Oligocene) of Nebraska4
- Fossil mammals from ant mounds situated on exposures of the Big Cottonwood Creek Member of the Chadron Formation (latest Eocene - Early Oligocene), Sioux County, Nebraska1
- Rodents (Mammalia) from the Pilgrim Creek Local Fauna, Wyoming: a mixed Eocene and Oligocene assemblage (Duchesnean To Whitneyan)1
- Mammals from the Blue Ash Local Fauna (Late Oligocene), South Dakota. Rodentia, Part 3: Family Sciuridae1
Each of the 12 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 Protosciurus mengi
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Protosciurus mengi 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 itProtosciurus through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Black 1963