Dinodontosaurus

Dinodontosaurus is a genus of dicynodont therapsid that lived in Brazil from the Middle Triassic to the Upper Triassic period. It was medium to large sized dicynodont with a skull up to 40 centimetres (16 in) long and had a beak corneum. There have two species that belong to this genus: D. brevirostris and D. tener. There is a third species that is a nomen dubium, D. turpior.

Dinodontosaurus

Jonathan Chen · CC BY 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
KannemeyeriiformesPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 170 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 241.464 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 18 of 22 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 22 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 22 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 22 occurrencesLate Cretaceous245–239 Mya — about 10 occurrences239–233 Mya — about 9 occurrences233–227 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences227–221 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences221–216 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences216–210 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences210–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–198 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences198–192 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences192–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–180 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences180–174 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences174–169 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences169–163 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences163–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–151 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences151–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–133 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences133–127 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–116 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences116–110 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences110–104 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–92 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences92–86 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences245 Mya69 Mya

22 occurrences of Dinodontosaurus 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

22 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

2 formations

Santa Maria — 29.80°S, 52.78°WSanta Maria — 29.67°S, 54.37°WSanta Maria — 29.57°S, 53.51°WSanta Maria — 29.75°S, 53.00°WSanta Maria — 29.72°S, 53.23°WSanta Maria — 29.88°S, 53.00°WSanta Maria — 29.73°S, 52.05°WSanta Maria — 29.62°S, 53.38°WChañares — 29.85°S, 67.78°WChañares — 29.78°S, 67.73°WChañares — 29.83°S, 67.82°W

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

Dinodontosaurus and its relatives

Middle Triassic

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

Found in the same rock

35 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Dinodontosaurus, 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 22 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 Dinodontosaurus

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY 4.0
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 itKannemeyeriiformes through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Romer 1943