Captorhinus aguti
Captorhinus is an extinct genus of captorhinid reptiles that lived during the Permian period. Its remains are known from North America and possibly South America. It is known from mummified specimens preserving its anatomy in exceptionally high detail.

Didier Descouens · 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
- CaptorhinusPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, herbivorePBDB, for Captorhinidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Captorhinidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Captorhinidae
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Captorhinidae
Time the record covers
At most 47 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 298.9 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
23 occurrences of Captorhinus aguti 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
23 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
7 formations
- Arroyo Formation · Clear Fork Group10
- Vale Formation · Clear Fork Group4
- Garber Sandstone Formation · Sumner Group3
- Hennessey Formation1
- Wellington Formation · Sumner Group1
- Waggoner Ranch Formation · Wichita Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Captorhinus aguti has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Captorhinus aguti and its relatives
PermianWhere Captorhinus aguti and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
160 taxa- Eryops megacephalus7 sites
- Trimerorhachis7 sites
- Diadectes6 sites
- Diplocaulus6 sites
- Diplocaulus magnicornis6 sites
- Dimetrodon giganhomogenes5 sites
- Eryops5 sites
- Labidosaurus hamatus5 sites
- Brachydectes newberryi4 sites
- Cardiocephalus sternbergi4 sites
- Dimetrodon4 sites
- Edaphosaurus4 sites
- Ophiacodon4 sites
- Xenacanthus4 sites
- Acheloma3 sites
- Brachydectes3 sites
- Captorhinikos valensis3 sites
- Dimetrodon limbatus3 sites
- Dimetrodon loomisi3 sites
- Dissorophus multicinctus3 sites
- Gnathorhiza serrata3 sites
- Labidosaurikos meachami3 sites
- Labidosaurus3 sites
- Orthacanthus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Captorhinus aguti, 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
14 references- New Specimens of Xenacanth and Hybodont Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Xenacanthida and Hybodontoidea) from the Lower Permian of Southwestern Oklahoma3
- Osteology and Relationships of Captorhinus aguti (Cope) (Reptilia: Captorhinomorpha)3
- A review of the family Captorhinidae3
- The Vale Formation (Lower Permian): Its Vertebrates and Paleoecology2
- Early Permian Vertebrates2
- The reptilian order Cotylosauria2
- Multiple tooth-rowed captorhinids from the early Permian fissure fills of the Bally Mountain Locality of Oklahoma1
- First record of Seymouria (Vertebrata: Seymouriamorpha) from Early Permian fissure fills at Richards Spur, Oklahoma1
- Bayloria morei Olson 1941 identified as an immature specimen of the Permian reptile Captorhinus aguti (Cope, 1882)1
- A Lower Permian vertebrate fauna from southern Oklahoma1
- Fauna of the Vale and Choza: 9. Captorhinomorpha1
- Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds1
Each of the 23 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. 2 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 Captorhinus aguti
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Didier Descouens
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Captorhinus aguti 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Captorhinus”
- 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 itCaptorhinus through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1882)