Melosauridae
Melosaurus is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian. Fossils of it have been found in Russia. Fossil remains of Melosaurus uralensis were discovered at Belebei in Russia. Its fossils dated of the Asselian-Olenekian stages. Fossils of Melosaurus sp. were also unearthed at the site. Fossils of Melosaurus uralensis were found at the Sterlitamak site in Bashkortostan in Russia. The span of the strata is listed as Wordian.

Dmitry Bogdanov · 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
- ArchegosauroideaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At most 2.7 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 266.9 Mya and 264.28 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Melosauridae 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
1 occurrences- Permian100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Melosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Melosauridae and its relatives
PermianWhere Melosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
4 taxa- Kichkassia furcae1 site
- Platysomus1 site
- Varialepis bergi1 site
- Xenosynechodus egloni1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Melosauridae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Melosauridae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dmitry Bogdanov
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Melosauridae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Melosaurus”
- 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 itArchegosauroidea through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fritsch 1885