Placodus

Placodus is an extinct genus of marine reptiles belonging to the order Placodontia, which swam in the shallow seas of the middle Triassic period. Fossils of Placodus have been found in Central Europe and China.

Placodus

Ghedoghedo · 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
PlacodontidaePBDB
Diet
durophagePBDB, for Placodontidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Placodontidae
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Placodontidae
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Placodontidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Sauropterygia

Time the record covers

At least 6.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 243.43 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 250.8 Mya to 227.3 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 34 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 33 of 34 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 1 of 34 occurrencesLate Triassic251–250 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 1 occurrence246–246 Mya — about 2 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 2 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 3 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 3 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 2 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 3 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 3 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 3 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 3 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 3 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 1 occurrence237–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences232–231 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences243.43 Mya237 Mya251.3 Mya226.8 Mya

34 occurrences of Placodus 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

34 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

8 formations

Jena — 51.22°N, 11.77°EJena — 52.47°N, 13.78°EWellenkalk — 50.30°N, 18.97°EVossenveld — 51.97°N, 6.73°ECalcare di Recoaro — 45.75°N, 11.12°ETrochitenkalk — 51.09°N, 11.63°EMuschelkalk — 51.37°N, 10.87°EGuanling — 25.47°N, 104.83°ERaibl — 47.75°N, 12.74°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Placodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Placodus and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Placodus and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

159 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Placodus, 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

11 references

Each of the 34 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 Placodus

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

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itPlacodontidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1833