Melosaurus

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.

Melosaurus

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
MelosaurinaePBDB
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 14 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 277.3 Mya and 264.28 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 7 of 7 occurrencesPermian277–277 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences277–276 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences276–276 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences276–275 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences275–275 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences275–275 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences275–274 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences274–274 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences274–273 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences273–273 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences273–272 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences272–272 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences272–271 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences271–271 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences271–270 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences270–270 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences270–269 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences269–269 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences269–268 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences268–268 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences268–268 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences268–267 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences267–267 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences267–266 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences266–266 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences266–265 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences265–265 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences265–264 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences277.8 Mya263.8 Mya

7 occurrences of Melosaurus 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

7 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

4 formations

Belebei — 55.72°N, 51.40°EPechishchi — 58.64°N, 49.85°EBelebey — 55.71°N, 51.41°EBaytugan — 56.01°N, 52.71°E

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The named rock units Melosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Melosaurus and its relatives

Permian

Where Melosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Melosaurus, 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

6 references

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 Melosaurus

Credit
Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Melosaurus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itMelosaurinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. von Meyer 1857