Brachauchenius lucasi

Brachauchenius is an extinct genus of pliosaurs that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what are now North America and North Africa. Only one species is known, B. lucasi, initially described by Samuel Wendell Williston in 1903 from a partial fossil skeleton discovered in a quarry in Kansas, United States. Many other fossil specimens attributed to the species were subsequently discovered, including an individual from Morocco whose presence was made official in 2016. Many contemporary pliosaur specimens were formerly attributed to Brachauchenius, but have since been reidentified as belonging to other genera or are recognized as indeterminate.

Brachauchenius lucasi

Original photographs by the Smithsonian Institution Adapted from originals by uploader · CC0 · 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
BrachaucheniusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pliosauroidea

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 100.5 Mya and 89.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 6 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 6 of 6 occurrencesLate Cretaceous101–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences92–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences92–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences92–91 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences91–91 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences91–90 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences101 Mya89.3 Mya

6 occurrences of Brachauchenius lucasi on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

6 occurrences

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

5 formations

Greenhorn Limestone — 39.00°N, 98.92°WEagle Ford — 30.25°N, 97.75°WTropic Shale — 37.08°N, 111.66°WAkrabou — 31.85°N, 4.93°WDakota — 38.92°N, 98.50°W

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The named rock units Brachauchenius lucasi 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.

Brachauchenius lucasi and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Brachauchenius lucasi and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Brachauchenius lucasi, 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

6 references

Each of the 6 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Brachauchenius lucasi

Credit
Original photographs by the Smithsonian Institution Adapted from originals by uploader
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Brachauchenius lucasi was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itBrachauchenius through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Williston 1903