Brachyopidae

Brachyopidae is an extinct family of temnospondyls. They evolved in the early Mesozoic and were mostly aquatic. A fragmentary find from Lesotho, Africa is estimated to have been 7 metres (23 ft) long, the largest amphibian ever known to have lived besides Prionosuchus and Mastodonsaurus. Brachyopids were the only group of temnospondyls to survive into the Jurassic aside from their sister family Chigutisauridae; there are records of brachyopids from the Jurassic of Asia.

Brachyopidae

Dmitry Bogdanov · CC BY 3.0 · 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
BrachyopoideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 113 million years on record.

The record covers at least 250.8 Mya to 137.05 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 259.857 Mya to 100.5 Mya.

Permian — about 1 of 37 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 11 of 37 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 12 of 37 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 37 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 37 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 8 of 37 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 4 of 37 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 37 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 37 occurrences263–258 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences258–252 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences252–246 Mya — about 13 occurrences246–241 Mya — about 11 occurrences175–169 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences169–164 Mya — about 5 occurrences164–158 Mya — about 4 occurrences158–153 Mya — about 1 occurrence153–147 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences147–142 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences142–136 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences136–130 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences130–125 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences125–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–108 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences108–103 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences103–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250.8 Mya137.05 Mya263 Mya97 Mya

37 occurrences of Brachyopidae on record, most of them in the Middle 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

37 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

19 formations

Balabansai — 41.33°N, 72.25°EBalabansai — 41.33°N, 72.11°EBalabansai — 40.90°N, 73.49°EBurgersdorp — 30.68°S, 26.70°EBurgersdorp — 30.88°S, 26.22°EBurgersdorp — 30.77°S, 26.28°EBurgersdorp — 28.18°S, 27.96°EBurgersdorp — 30.42°S, 26.27°EBurgersdorp — 31.00°S, 26.33°EKnocklofty — 42.88°S, 147.30°EKnocklofty — 42.79°S, 147.28°EKnocklofty — 43.08°S, 147.28°EKnocklofty — 42.80°S, 147.52°EKnocklofty — 42.96°S, 147.70°EMoenkopi — 34.92°N, 110.26°WMoenkopi — 35.87°N, 111.49°WAshfield Shale — 33.97°S, 151.08°EAshfield Shale — 33.92°S, 151.18°EBlina Shale — 17.86°S, 124.36°EShaximiao — 29.41°N, 104.85°EToutunhe — 43.55°N, 87.26°EMoskovoretskaya — 55.20°N, 38.78°ENtawere — 10.75°S, 33.08°ELower Zarzaïtine — 27.77°N, 9.69°EArcadia — 23.64°S, 148.90°EGlenidal — 24.88°S, 148.83°ETerrigal — 33.43°S, 151.34°EKamthi — 20.25°N, 79.00°EQigu — 43.79°N, 87.55°ELianmuqin — 43.55°N, 87.26°EShar Teg — 44.12°N, 95.82°EPhu Kradung — 16.65°N, 102.25°E

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The named rock units Brachyopidae 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.

Brachyopidae and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Brachyopidae and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

236 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 35 sites for Brachyopidae, 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

27 references

Each of the 37 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. 15 further references are not listed. 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 content1

Picture of Brachyopidae

Credit
Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Brachyopidae 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 itBrachyopoidea through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Broom 1915