Cardiocephalus
Cardiocephalus is an extinct genus of microsaurian tetrapods from the Permian period. It was a member of the family Gymnarthridae.

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- GymnarthridaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
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.
10 occurrences of Cardiocephalus 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
10 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
4 formations
- Arroyo Formation · Clear Fork Group4
- Hennessey Formation2
- Garber Sandstone Formation · Sumner Group2
- Petrolia Formation · Wichita Group1
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The named rock units Cardiocephalus 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.
Cardiocephalus and its relatives
PermianWhere Cardiocephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
128 taxa- Captorhinus aguti5 sites
- Acheloma3 sites
- Brachydectes newberryi3 sites
- Diadectes3 sites
- Diplocaulus3 sites
- Diplocaulus magnicornis3 sites
- Eryops megacephalus3 sites
- Orthacanthus3 sites
- Trimerorhachis insignis3 sites
- Archeria2 sites
- Aspidosaurus2 sites
- Captorhinus2 sites
- Diadectes tenuitectes2 sites
- Dimetrodon2 sites
- Dimetrodon limbatus2 sites
- Dimetrodon loomisi2 sites
- Dissorophus multicinctus2 sites
- Edaphosaurus2 sites
- Edaphosaurus pogonias2 sites
- Eryops2 sites
- Micraroter erythrogeios2 sites
- Ophiacodon retroversus2 sites
- Orthacanthus platypternus2 sites
- Orthacanthus texensis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Cardiocephalus, 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
8 references- New Specimens of Xenacanth and Hybodont Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Xenacanthida and Hybodontoidea) from the Lower Permian of Southwestern Oklahoma2
- A Lower Permian vertebrate fauna from southern Oklahoma2
- The Order Microsauria1
- Early Permian Vertebrates1
- Revision of the Gymnarthridae - American Permian Microsaurs1
- Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds1
- New or little known reptiles and amphibians from the Permian (?) of Texas1
- Permische Stegocephalen und Reptilien aus Texas1
Each of the 10 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 Cardiocephalus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cardiocephalus 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 itGymnarthridae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Broili 1904