Zygorhiza

Zygorhiza ("Yoke-Root") is an extinct genus of basilosaurid early whale known from the Late Eocene of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, United States, and the Bartonian to the late Eocene of New Zealand . Specimens reported from Europe are considered Dorudontinae incertae sedis.

Zygorhiza

Claire H. from New York City, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
BasilosauridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cetacea
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cetacea

Time the record covers

At least 1.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 39.1 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 42.6 Mya to 33.9 Mya.

Eocene — about 16 of 16 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 16 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences39.1 Mya37.71 Mya43.1 Mya33.4 Mya

16 occurrences of Zygorhiza 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

16 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

3 formations

Yazoo — 31.93°N, 88.46°WYazoo — 32.32°N, 90.16°WYazoo — 31.82°N, 92.33°WYazoo — 31.73°N, 87.89°WYazoo — 31.93°N, 91.94°WYazoo — 31.66°N, 92.90°WYazoo — 31.77°N, 88.44°WYazoo — 31.73°N, 87.98°WYazoo — 32.36°N, 89.47°WYazoo — 31.69°N, 88.30°WWaihao Greensand — 44.78°S, 170.93°EWaihao Greensand — 44.78°S, 171.17°EHeadon Hill — 50.80°N, 1.55°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Zygorhiza 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.

Zygorhiza and its relatives

Eocene

Where Zygorhiza and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

231 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Zygorhiza, 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

13 references

Each of the 16 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. 1 further reference is 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 content2

Picture of Zygorhiza

Credit
Claire H. from New York City, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
paleomoe
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itBasilosauridae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. True 1908