Chroniosuchidae
Chroniosuchidae is a family of semi-aquatic tetrapods found in sediments from the upper Permian and the upper Triassic periods, most in Russia. They were generally rather large animals, with long jaws similar to those found in modern crocodiles, and probably lived a similar lifestyle as riverside piscivores and ambush predators. Like all chroniosuchians, they bore extensive osteoderm armour on their backs, possibly as protection against terrestrial predators such as the Permian therapsids and the Triassic rauisuchians.

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · 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
- ChroniosuchiaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At least 22 million years on record.
The record covers at least 264.28 Mya to 241.464 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 274.4 Mya to 227.3 Mya.
41 occurrences of Chroniosuchidae 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
41 occurrences- Permian98%
- Middle Triassicunder 1%
- Late Triassic2%
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
14 formations
- Poldarsa Formation7
- Malokinelskaya Formation3
- Kutulukskaya Formation3
- Qingtoushan Formation2
- Kutuluk Formation2
- Kulchumovskaya Formation2
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The named rock units Chroniosuchidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Chroniosuchidae and its relatives
PermianWhere Chroniosuchidae and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
292 taxa- Toyemia blumentalis10 sites
- Isadia aristoviensis9 sites
- Chroniosaurus dongusensis8 sites
- Karpinskiosaurus secundus8 sites
- Dvinosaurus primus7 sites
- Toyemia tverdochlebovi7 sites
- Chroniosuchus paradoxus6 sites
- Dvinosaurus6 sites
- Microphon exiguus6 sites
- Pareiasauridae6 sites
- Scutosaurus karpinskii6 sites
- Isadia5 sites
- Microphon5 sites
- Mutovinia stella5 sites
- Suchonellina5 sites
- Toyemia5 sites
- Chroniosaurus levis4 sites
- Isadia suchonensis4 sites
- Strelnia certa4 sites
- Vivaxosaurus trautscholdi4 sites
- Annatherapsidus petri3 sites
- Dicynodontidae3 sites
- Geryonichthys3 sites
- Geryonichthys longus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Chroniosuchidae, 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
10 references- Revision of the Late Permian Chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from Eastern Europe17
- Upper Permian vertebrates and their sedimentological context in the South Urals, Russia6
- Permian and Triassic therocephals (Eutherapsida) of Eastern Europe5
- Type and reference sections of the Permian–Triassic continental sequences of the East European Platform: main isotope, magnetic, and biotic events4
- Type and reference sections of the Middle and Upper Permian of the Volga and Kama River Regions: A Field Guidebook of XVIII International Congress on Carboniferous and Permian2
- The most primitive lower tetrapod fauna in China2
- Permian and Triassic anthracosaurs from Eastern Europe2
- A chroniosuchid from the Triassic of Kyrgyzstan and analysis of chroniosuchian relationships1
- The First Gliding Reptiles from the Upper Permian of Russia1
- A new narrow-armored chroniosuchian (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from the Upper Permian of Eastern Europe1
Each of the 41 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. 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 Chroniosuchidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Chroniosuchidae 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 itChroniosuchia through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vjushkov 1957