Pistosaurus longaevus

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- PistosaurusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Sauropterygia
Time the record covers
At most 10 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 247 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Pistosaurus longaevus on record, most of them in the Middle 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- Middle 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
3 formations
- Boruszowice Formation2
- Marne della Val di Centa Formation1
- Trochitenkalk Formation · Muschelkalk Group1
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The named rock units Pistosaurus longaevus 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.
Pistosaurus longaevus and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Pistosaurus longaevus and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
10 taxa- Placodus gigas3 sites
- Nothosaurus giganteus2 sites
- Cyamodus tarnowitzensis1 site
- Cyclotosaurus1 site
- Expleuracanthus1 site
- Heterodontus1 site
- Lariosaurus buzzii1 site
- Nothosaurus1 site
- Nothosaurus marchicus1 site
- Polyacrodus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Pistosaurus longaevus, 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
3 references- Two types of bone necrosis in the Middle Triassic Pistosaurus longaevus bones: the results of integrated studies5
- New findings of isolated remains of Triassic reptiles from Northeastern Italy1
- Postcranial skeleton of Pistosaurus and interrelationships of the Sauropterygia (DIapsida)1
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 Pistosaurus longaevus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPistosaurus through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Meyer 1839