Australosomus
Australosomus is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish that lived during the Early Triassic epoch in what is now Greenland, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa and Canada.

Emőke Dénes · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- PholidopleuridaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, carnivorePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 26 million years on record.
The record covers at least 254.14 Mya to 227.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 259.857 Mya to 205.7 Mya.
22 occurrences of Australosomus on record, most of them in the Early Triassic. 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
22 occurrencesThese 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
5 formations
- Chinle Formation3
- Middle Sakamena Formation · Sakamena Group2
- Sulphur Mountain Formation1
- Wordie Creek Formation1
- Wegener Halvo Formation1
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The named rock units Australosomus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Australosomus and its relatives
Early TriassicWhere Australosomus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.
Found in the same rock
148 taxa- Birgeria groenlandica5 sites
- Parasemionotus labordei5 sites
- Saurichthys (Eosaurichthys) madagascariensis5 sites
- Boreosomus gillioti4 sites
- Boreosomus piveteaui4 sites
- Pteronisculus4 sites
- Saurichthys4 sites
- Watsonulus eugnathoides4 sites
- Acaenasuchus geoffreyi3 sites
- Archosauria3 sites
- Birgeria3 sites
- Calyptosuchus wellesi3 sites
- Chondrichthyes3 sites
- Coelacanthidae3 sites
- Cynodontia3 sites
- Hesperosuchus agilis3 sites
- Perleidus3 sites
- Poposaurus gracilis3 sites
- Postosuchus kirkpatricki3 sites
- Pteronisculus arcticus3 sites
- Pteronisculus cicatrosus3 sites
- Redfieldiidae3 sites
- Semionotidae3 sites
- Triodus moorei3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Australosomus, 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
11 references- Studies on Triassic Fishes 2. Australosomus and Birgeria9
- La faune ichthyologique de l'Eotrias du N. W. de Madagascar: le neurocrâne2
- Etude complémentaire des poissons de l'Eotrias de Madagascar2
- Triassic Fishes from East Greenland collected by the Danish expeditions in 1929-19312
- Triassic vertebrate fossils in Arizona1
- Fossil occurrences and structural disturbance in the Triassic Chinle Formation at North Stinking Springs Mountain near St. Johns, Arizona1
- The microvertebrate fauna of the Placerias and Downs Quarries, Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic) near St. Johns, Arizona1
- Eotrias du Nord-Ouest de Madagascar: Etude de quelques poissons dont un est en parturition1
- On Some Lower Triassic fishes from Ankilokaza, Madagascar1
- An Early Triassic fish assemblage from British Columbia1
- Paléontologie de Madagascar XXVIII. - Les poissons de la Sakamena moyenne1
Each of the 22 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Australosomus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Emőke Dénes
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Australosomus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itPholidopleuridae through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pivetau 1930