Triconodon

Triconodon is a genus of extinct mammal from the Early Cretaceous of England and France with two known species: T. mordax and T. averianovi. First described in 1859 by Richard Owen, it is the type genus for the order Triconodonta, a group of mammals characterised by their three-cusped (triconodont) molar teeth. Since then, this "simplistic" type of dentition has been understood to be either ancestral for mammals or else to have evolved multiple times, rendering "triconodonts" a paraphyletic or polyphyletic assemblage respectively, but several lineages of "triconodont" mammals do form a natural, monophyletic group, known as Eutriconodonta, of which Triconodon is indeed part of.

Triconodon

Richard Owen · 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
TriconodontidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At most 6.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 143.1 Mya and 137.05 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 6 of 6 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences141–140 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences140–139 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences139–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143.6 Mya136.6 Mya

6 occurrences of Triconodon on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

6 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

1 formation

Lulworth — 50.60°N, 1.97°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Triconodon 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.

Triconodon and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Triconodon and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Triconodon, 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

Each of the 6 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 Triconodon

Credit
Richard Owen
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Triconodon 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.

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 itTriconodontidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen 1859