Cymatosaurus

Cymatosaurus is an extinct genus of pistosauroid or nothosauriform sauropterygian. It is known to have been alive from the Early Triassic to the Middle Triassic period of Germany and they seem to originate from the Netherlands. It was small to medium-sized for an eosauropterygian, measuring 1–1.2 metres (3.3–3.9 ft) long.

Cymatosaurus

H.-D. Sues & R. R. Schoch · CC0 · 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
PistosauroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Sauropterygia

Time the record covers

At most 10 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 247 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 16 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 16 of 16 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 0 of 16 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 2 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 3 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 2 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences247.5 Mya236.5 Mya

16 occurrences of Cymatosaurus 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

16 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

5 formations

Gogolin — 50.47°N, 17.97°EGogolin — 50.48°N, 18.08°ERöt — 51.48°N, 11.90°ERöt — 48.45°N, 8.42°ERöt — 52.47°N, 13.78°ERöt — 50.93°N, 11.59°EWellenkalk — 50.30°N, 18.97°EJena — 50.90°N, 11.30°EVossenveld — 51.97°N, 6.78°E

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The named rock units Cymatosaurus 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.

Cymatosaurus and its relatives

Middle Triassic

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

Found in the same rock

81 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Cymatosaurus, 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

9 references

Each of the 16 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 Cymatosaurus

Credit
H.-D. Sues & R. R. Schoch
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itPistosauroidea through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fritsch 1894