Kapes

Kapes is an extinct genus of procolophonid parareptile from the Lower and Middle Triassic of Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom. The type species K. amaenus was named in 1975 from the banks of the Vychegda River in the Komi Republic of Russia. In 1983, a new species was brought into the genus, K. majmesculae. K. majmesculae was first named in 1968 as a member of the genus Tichvinskia. A third Russian species, K. serotinus, was named in 1991. In 2002, Kapes bentoni was described from the Middle Triassic Otter Sandstone Formation of Devon, England, extending the geographic range of Kapes. In the same paper, K. serotinus was synonymized with K. majmesculae and another Russian species was assigned to Kapes called K. komiensis. K. komiensis was first named in 1975 as a member of the genus Macrophon. In 2025, Kapes signus was described from the Middle Triassic of Catalonia, Spain.

Kapes

Marta Zaher, Robert A. Coram, Michael J. Benton · 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
LeptopleuroninaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 3.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 247 Mya to 243.43 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 250.8 Mya to 241.464 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 6 of 9 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 9 occurrencesMiddle Triassic251–251 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences247 Mya243.43 Mya251.3 Mya241 Mya

9 occurrences of Kapes on record. 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

9 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

Petropavlovka — 52.03°N, 55.64°EYarenskian — 62.06°N, 49.56°EOtter Sandstone — 50.68°N, 3.23°WOtter Sandstone — 50.67°N, 3.27°WDonguz — 51.42°N, 55.43°ELipovskaya — 49.26°N, 43.67°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Found in the same rock

34 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Kapes, 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

6 references

Each of the 9 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 content2

Picture of Kapes

Credit
Marta Zaher, Robert A. Coram, Michael J. Benton
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Kapes signus · IPS:IPS124305

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 itLeptopleuroninae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ivakhnenko 1975