Zhelestidae

Zhelestidae is a lineage of extinct eutherian mammals. Occurring in the Late Cretaceous from the Turonian to the Maastrichtian, they were an extremely successful group, with representatives present in Europe, Asia, India, Africa and North America, ostensibly rendering them a cosmopolitan clade. They were specialised towards an herbivorous lifestyle and were in fact initially considered stem-ungulates, but the presence of epipubics and "archaic" dental characters render them as non-placental eutherians. They may be closely related to zalambdalestids.

No picture of Zhelestidae was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Zhelestidae, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
EutheriaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Theria
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 77 million years on record.

The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 66 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 6 of 67 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 67 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 60 of 67 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 67 occurrences157–153 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences153–150 Mya — about 2 occurrences150–147 Mya — about 2 occurrences147–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–141 Mya — about 1 occurrence141–138 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences138–135 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 3 occurrences98–95 Mya — about 4 occurrences95–92 Mya — about 12 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 12 occurrences89–86 Mya — about 2 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 2 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 5 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 5 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 5 occurrences73–70 Mya — about 5 occurrences70–67 Mya — about 4 occurrences67–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences149.2 Mya72.2 Mya157 Mya64 Mya

67 occurrences of Zhelestidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

67 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

22 formations

Bissekty — 42.12°N, 62.66°EKhodzhakul — 40.10°N, 65.80°EKhodzhakul — 40.60°N, 71.83°EVitoria — 42.66°N, 2.63°WAitym — 42.12°N, 62.66°EMesaverde — 44.10°N, 107.76°WMesaverde — 44.08°N, 107.73°WKaiparowits — 37.40°N, 111.20°WKaiparowits — 37.42°N, 111.77°WBostobe — 45.93°N, 64.71°EBostobe — 45.95°N, 64.65°EBostobe — 45.55°N, 64.41°EInaltı — 41.64°N, 34.86°EFrenchman — 49.30°N, 108.40°WEl Gallo — 30.20°N, 115.79°WAguja — 29.32°N, 103.52°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WScollard — 51.80°N, 113.00°WMaevarano — 15.90°S, 46.58°EDabrazhin — 41.75°N, 68.52°ESantibañez del Val — 41.98°N, 3.52°WJobu — 32.74°N, 130.84°EGrès à Reptiles — 43.35°N, 2.95°EArgiles et Grès à Reptiles — 43.49°N, 5.61°ELower Monte Bardia — 40.27°N, 9.62°EGrès de Labarre — 43.03°N, 1.40°ESlivnitsa — 42.77°N, 22.76°E

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The named rock units Zhelestidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Zhelestidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Zhelestidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

527 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 42 sites for Zhelestidae, 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

31 references

Each of the 67 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. 19 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 content0

No picture of Zhelestidae was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Zhelestidae, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Zhelestidae 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 itEutheria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Nessov 1990