Caypullisaurus bonapartei

Caypullisaurus is an extinct genus of platypterygiine ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of Argentina. Its holotype was collected from the Vaca Muerta Formation of Cerro Lotena, Neuquen, dating to the early Tithonian stage of the Late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago. Caypullisaurus was first named by Marta Fernández in 1997 and the type species is Caypullisaurus bonapartei. It was a large ichthyosaur, measuring about 7 m (23 ft) long. The forelimbs of Caypullisaurus contained 10 digits each.

Caypullisaurus bonapartei

Creator: 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
CaypullisaurusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ichthyosauria
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ichthyopterygia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ichthyosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Ichthyosauria

Time the record covers

At most 8.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 145.06 Mya and 137.05 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 2 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 2 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous145–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences141–140 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences140–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences138–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145.6 Mya136.6 Mya

2 occurrences of Caypullisaurus bonapartei on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

2 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

1 formation

Vaca Muerta — 38.11°S, 70.50°WVaca Muerta — 39.19°S, 69.67°W

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The named rock units Caypullisaurus bonapartei has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Caypullisaurus bonapartei and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Caypullisaurus bonapartei and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

6 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Caypullisaurus bonapartei, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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 content2

Picture of Caypullisaurus bonapartei

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

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itCaypullisaurus through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fernández 1997