Trigonostylopidae
Trigonostylops is an extinct genus of South American meridiungulatan ungulate, from the Late Paleocene to Late Eocene of South America and Antarctica. It is the only member of the family Trigonostylopidae.

Rextron · 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
- AstrapotheriaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Astrapotheria
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 18 million years on record.
The record covers at least 56 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 57 Mya to 27.3 Mya.
71 occurrences of Trigonostylopidae 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
71 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
9 formations
- Sarmiento Formation39
- Las Flores Formation · Río Chico Group6
- La Meseta Formation2
- Itaboraí Formation2
- Lumbrera Formation · Salta Group1
- Casamayor Formation1
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The named rock units Trigonostylopidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Trigonostylopidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Trigonostylopidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
319 taxa- Trigonostylops wortmani16 sites
- Notopithecus adapinus13 sites
- Trigonostylops12 sites
- Notostylops murinus10 sites
- Antepithecus brachystephanus9 sites
- Henricosbornia lophodonta9 sites
- Pleurostylodon similis9 sites
- Archaeopithecus rogeri8 sites
- Albertogaudrya unica7 sites
- Isotemnus primitivus7 sites
- Notostylops7 sites
- Oldfieldthomasia debilitata7 sites
- Polydolops thomasi7 sites
- Transpithecus obtentus7 sites
- Notoungulata6 sites
- Pleurostylodon modicus6 sites
- Thomashuxleya externa6 sites
- Albertogaudrya5 sites
- Isotemnus5 sites
- Maxschlosseria praeterita5 sites
- Notopithecus5 sites
- Notostylops pendens5 sites
- Paginula parca5 sites
- Victorlemoineia5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 36 sites for Trigonostylopidae, 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
24 references- The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part II15
- Biostratigraphy of the Casamayoran, Early Eocene of Patagonia13
- Notices préliminaires sur des ongulés nouveaux des terrains crétacés de Patagonie [Preliminary notes on new ungulates from the Cretaceous terrains of Patagonia]8
- Nuevas especies de mamíferos, cretáceos y terciarios de la República Argentina [New species of mammals, Cretaceous and Tertiarty, from the Argentine Republic]6
- Vertebrate paleontology, geology, and geochronology of the Tapera de López and Scarritt Pocket, Chubut Province, Argentina4
- New insights into the Kibenikhoria and Ernestokokenia faunas and the implications for the early Eocene of Patagonia, Argentina3
- Cranial morphology and phylogenetic relationships of Trigonostylops wortmani, an Eocene South American native ungulate2
- Astrapotheres from Cañadón Vaca, middle Eocene of central Patagonia. New insights on diversity, anatomy and early evolution of Astrapotheria2
- Revised timing of the South American early Paleogene land mammal ages2
- Um Trigonostylopidae do Paleoceno do Brasil2
- Eocene mammals from volcaniclastic deposits of the Somun Cura Plateau: biostratigraphic implications for north Patagonia Paleogene1
- A 60-million-year Cenozoic history of western Amazonian ecosystems in Contamana, eastern Peru1
Each of the 71 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. 12 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 content1
Picture of Trigonostylopidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rextron
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Trigonostylopidae 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 itAstrapotheria through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1901