Smilodectes

Smilodectes is a genus of adapiform primate that lived in North America during the middle Eocene. It possesses a post-orbital bar and grasping thumbs and toes. Smilodectes has a small cranium size and the foramen magnum was located at the back of the skull, on the occipital bone.

Smilodectes

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
NotharctidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Primates
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Primates
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 5.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 51.1 Mya and 45.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 59 of 59 occurrencesEocene51–51 Mya — about 1 occurrence51–51 Mya — about 2 occurrences51–51 Mya — about 2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 1 occurrence51.6 Mya45.4 Mya

59 occurrences of Smilodectes on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

59 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

7 formations

Bridger — 42.70°N, 110.10°WBridger — 41.70°N, 109.00°WBridger — 41.20°N, 110.50°WBridger — 41.80°N, 110.70°WBridger — 41.77°N, 110.33°WBridger — 42.37°N, 108.91°WBridger — 41.87°N, 109.60°WBridger — 41.37°N, 109.82°WGreen River — 41.80°N, 110.70°WGreen River — 42.70°N, 110.10°WGreen River — 42.45°N, 108.60°WGreen River — 40.20°N, 109.90°WHuerfano — 37.80°N, 105.10°WAycross — 44.30°N, 109.00°WWillwood — 44.30°N, 109.00°WWind River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WWasatch — 42.37°N, 108.91°W

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

Smilodectes and its relatives

Eocene

Where Smilodectes and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

281 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 59 sites for Smilodectes, 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

15 references

Each of the 59 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. 3 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 content2

Picture of Smilodectes

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

MorphoSource 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 itNotharctidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wortman 1903