Comprising eight species, they resembled today's bilbies, bandicoots, and elephant shrews, and occupied a similar niche.

They are especially interesting for their combination of characteristics typical of primitive eutherians with highly specialized adaptations, such as powerful hind legs and a long tail which aided in locomotion.

They appeared in the Lower Eocene, a time of warm temperatures and high humidity, roughly fifty million years ago.

The anteorbital muscle fenestrae in their crania suggest they probably had a long and mobile snout (or Proboscis), similar to that of elephant shrews.

Leptictidium had wide diastemata in the antemolar row,[3] its upper molar teeth were more transverse than those of the North American leptictids and its fourth premolars were molariform.

The marks on their fur have been preserved, as well as their stomach contents, which reveal Leptictidium were omnivores which fed on insects, lizards and small mammals.

[10] The holotype of L. tobieni also had pieces of leaves and notable amounts of sand in its abdomen, but it cannot be determined with certainty if the animal swallowed it.

The global climate of the Eocene was probably the most homogeneous of the Cenozoic; the temperature gradient from the equator to the poles was half that of today's, and the deep ocean currents were exceptionally warm.

The polar regions were much warmer than today, possibly as warm as the present-day Pacific Northwest of North America.

The lake would periodically release the gas it contained, creating a lethal cloud which would asphyxiate any animal in its path.

[citation needed] In the lush forests of this region, Leptictidium shared its habitat with animals such as Godinotia, Pholidocercus, Palaeotis, or Propalaeotherium.

Fossils have been found in the lagerstätte at Robiac, Le Bretou, Lavergne, La Bouffie, Les Clapiès, Malpérié and Perrière (France), in Upper Ludian strata.

[16] The species is dedicated to Léonard Ginsburg, French paleontologist and deputy director of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in París.

The species is dedicated to Heinz Tobien, descriptor of the genus Leptictidium and promoter of research in the Messel pit during the 1960s.

The holotype is a complete and perfectly preserved skeleton of an adult specimen which was uncovered in September 1984 and which can be found at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.

[3] There is also a paratype; a non-complete and badly preserved specimen which can be found at the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique.

[3] The Messel species developed very quickly a series of characteristic evolutionary traits, common to all of them, which separate them from the lagerstätte of Quercy.