Synoplotherium

Synoplotherium is an extinct genus of relatively small, wolf-like mesonychids that lived 50 million years ago, in what is now Wyoming.

Synoplotherium

Lull. · 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
MesonychidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Mesonychidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Mesonychidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 51.1 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 13 of 13 occurrencesEocene51–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences50–50 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences51.6 Mya39.2 Mya

13 occurrences of Synoplotherium 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

13 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

Washakie — 41.29°N, 108.47°WWashakie — 42.73°N, 109.17°WWashakie — 41.37°N, 108.26°WWashakie — 41.40°N, 108.17°WDevil's Graveyard — 29.20°N, 103.20°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Synoplotherium and its relatives

Eocene

Where Synoplotherium and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

8 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Synoplotherium, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 13 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Synoplotherium

Credit
Lull.
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Synoplotherium was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

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 itMesonychidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1872