Hypsognathus
Hypsognathus is an extinct genus of procolophonid parareptile from the Late Triassic of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Nova Scotia.

Smokeybjb · CC BY-SA 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
- LeptopleuroninaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 21 million years on record.
The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 205.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 201.4 Mya.
7 occurrences of Hypsognathus on record, most of them in the Late 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
7 occurrences- Late Triassic100%
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
- Passaic Formation · Chatham Group3
- New Haven Formation · Chatham Group1
- Blomidon Formation · Chatham Group1
- Wolfville Formation · Chatham Group1
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The named rock units Hypsognathus 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.
Hypsognathus and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Hypsognathus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
26 taxa- Archosauriformes2 sites
- Aetosauria1 site
- Crocodylomorpha1 site
- Cyzicus1 site
- Dicynodontia1 site
- Diphydontosaurus1 site
- Gwyneddichnium majore1 site
- Haligonia1 site
- Haligonia bolodon1 site
- Hyperodapedon1 site
- Lepidosauria1 site
- Leptopleuroninae1 site
- Metoposaurus bakeri1 site
- Nemacanthus monilifer1 site
- Planocephalosaurus robinsonae1 site
- Polyacrodus cloacinus1 site
- Procolophonichnium1 site
- Prosauropoda1 site
- Rauisuchidae1 site
- Scoloparia1 site
- Smilodonterpeton ruthinensis1 site
- Thecodontosaurus1 site
- Theropoda1 site
- Tricuspisaurus thomasi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Hypsognathus, 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
5 references- Cranial osteology of Hypsognathus fenneri, a latest Triassic procolophonid reptile from the Newark Supergroup of Eastern North America3
- Late Triassic island dwarfs? Terrestrial tetrapods of the Ruthin fissure (South Wales, UK) including a new genus of procolophonid1
- Some Upper Triassic reptiles, footprints and an amphibian from New Jersey1
- Carroll et al., 19721
- Hypsognathus, a Triassic Reptile from New Jersey1
Each of the 7 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 Hypsognathus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Smokeybjb
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- 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 itLeptopleuroninae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gilmore 1928