Oxyacodon
Encyclopedia
Oxyacodon is an extinct genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of condylarth
Condylarth
Condylarthra is an order of extinct placental mammals known primarily from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. Condylarths are among the most characteristic Paleocene mammals and they illustrate the evolutionary level of the Paleocene mammal fauna....

 of the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Periptychidae
Periptychidae
Periptychidae is a family of Paleocene placental mammals, known definitively only from North America. The family is part of a radiation of early herbivorous and omnivorous mammals classified in the extinct order Condylarthra, which may be related to some or all living ungulates...

 endemic to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 during the Early Paleocene living from 65—63.3 mya, existing for approximately .

Taxonomy

Oxyacodon was named by Osborn and Earle (1895). Its type is Oxyacodon apiculatus. It was assigned to Periptychidae by Osborn and Earle (1895) and Carroll (1988); and to Conacodontinae by Archibald (1998), Eberle (2003) and Middleton and Dewar (2004).

Fossils have been found dating back to the Puercan
Puercan
The Puercan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology , typically set from 65,000,000 to 63,300,000 years BP lasting . It is usually considered to be within the Paleocene...

 stage in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

 and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

.
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