Sphenocoelus

Sphenocoelus is an extinct genus of brontothere known from North America during the Middle Eocene.

Sphenocoelus

Othenio Abel · Public Domain · 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
DolichorhininiPBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Brontotheriidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Brontotheriidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 45.9 Mya and 39.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 12 of 12 occurrencesEocene46–46 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences46.4 Mya39.2 Mya

12 occurrences of Sphenocoelus 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

12 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

2 formations

Uinta — 40.20°N, 109.90°WWashakie — 41.70°N, 109.00°WWashakie — 40.60°N, 108.10°W

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

Sphenocoelus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Sphenocoelus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

124 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Sphenocoelus, 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

7 references

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 Sphenocoelus

Credit
Othenio Abel
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sphenocoelus 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 itDolichorhinini through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Osborn 1895