Pachystropheus

Pachystropheus is a genus of prehistoric thalattosaurian marine reptile, from the Rhaetian of southwestern England and southern Germany. It is the youngest known thalattosaur.

Pachystropheus

Harold9595959 · CC0 · 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
ChoristoderaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 4.3 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 205.7 Mya and 201.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 3 occurrences206–206 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences206–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences204–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences206.2 Mya200.9 Mya

3 occurrences of Pachystropheus 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

3 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

Westbury — 51.60°N, 2.63°WExter — 51.57°N, 9.05°E

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The named rock units Pachystropheus 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.

Pachystropheus and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Pachystropheus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

50 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Pachystropheus, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Pachystropheus

Credit
Harold9595959
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Pachystropheus rhaeticus · NHMUK:PAL:PV R 747

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 itChoristodera through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. von Huene 1935