Bolosaurus
Bolosaurus is an extinct genus of bolosaurid reptile from the Cisuralian epoch of North Asia and North America.

Neil Pezzoni · CC BY 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
- BolosaurinaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 6.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 290.1 Mya to 283.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 298.9 Mya to 274.4 Mya.
9 occurrences of Bolosaurus on record, most of them in the Permian. 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
9 occurrences- Permian100%
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
6 formations
- Admiral Formation · Wichita Group3
- Arroyo Formation · Clear Fork Group1
- Nocona Formation · Wichita Group1
- Archer City Formation · Wichita Group1
- Garber Formation · Sumner Group1
- Arroyo del Agua Formation · Cutler Group1
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The named rock units Bolosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Bolosaurus and its relatives
PermianWhere Bolosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
124 taxa- Diadectes4 sites
- Trimerorhachis4 sites
- Dimetrodon natalis3 sites
- Eryops3 sites
- Eryops megacephalus3 sites
- Ophiacodon3 sites
- Ophiacodon uniformis3 sites
- Acheloma cumminsi2 sites
- Archeria crassidisca2 sites
- Aspidosaurus2 sites
- Captorhinus aguti2 sites
- Cricotus2 sites
- Dimetrodon2 sites
- Dimetrodon limbatus2 sites
- Dissorophidae2 sites
- Edaphosaurus2 sites
- Ophiacodon retroversus2 sites
- Sagenodus2 sites
- Secodontosaurus obtusidens2 sites
- Seymouria2 sites
- Sphenacodontidae2 sites
- Zatrachys2 sites
- Abyssomedon williamsi1 site
- Acheloma cryptatheria1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Bolosaurus, 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
7 references- Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds3
- First evidence of a bolosaurid parareptile in France (latest Carboniferous-earliest Permian of the Autun basin) and the spatiotemporal distribution of the Bolosauridae1
- Early Permian Vertebrate Assemblage and its Biostratigraphic Significance, Arroyo del Agua, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico1
- A New Early Permian Bolosaurid Reptile from the Richards Spur Dolese Brothers Quarry, near Fort Sill, Oklahoma1
- Catalog of type and figured fossil vertebrates, Oklahoma Museum of Natural History1
- Early Permian Depositional Environments of Pond Bonebeds in Central Archer County, Texas1
- Taphonomy of the Lower Permian Geraldine Bonebed in Archer County, Texas1
Each of the 9 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. 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 Bolosaurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Neil Pezzoni
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Bolosaurus major · AMNH:farb:4461
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Bolosaurus”
- 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 itBolosaurinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1878