Paleogene Central Asian Mammal Occurrence and Body Size Data

Occurrence dataset: A relatively large (~1500) dataset of fossil mammal occurrence data for the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene (66 Ma - 23 Ma) of Mongolia and Northern China above 30 degrees North. Occurrence data comprises species or genus name, specimen information where possible, geological unit specimen was found in, age (range) of specimen and/or geological unit and any other relevant information. Data taken from multiple sources. The majority comes from the Palaeobiology Database (PBDB), an open-access community dataset of global fossil occurrences (and some trait data) for all time periods and taxonomic groups. Our dataset used only the mammal records from our study region and time period. A very small amount of data (10's of occurrences) was taken from the NOW (New and Old Worlds) Database of fossil mammals (NOW database), another open-access community dataset. This database contains only mammal occurrence and trait data for fossil mammals throughout geological history and across the world. Additional occurrence data (~100) was collected first hand from the literature by Dr Gemma Benevento.

Body Size dataset: Lower first molar (m1) length and width (which can be used to estimate mammal body size) was collected for approximately 60% of the individual species in the occurrence dataset (~430 species).