Plagiosaurus

Plagiosaurus is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian. The type and only species is P. depressus, first described by Otto Jaekel in 1914. Arthur Smith Woodward regarded the genus as a synonym of Plagiosternum, but most researchers consider it to be valid. It was paedomorphic, retaining the larval gills in adulthood. Like many stereospondyls, it had weak simplified vertebrae, consisting of large intercentra and neural arches, which is known as the stereospondylous condition.

Plagiosaurus

ДиБгд at Russian Wikipedia · Public Domain · 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
PlagiosaurinaePBDB
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 least 5.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 211.18 Mya to 205.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 215.38 Mya to 201.4 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 4 of 4 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 4 occurrences215–215 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences215–214 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences214–214 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences214–213 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences213–213 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences213–212 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212–212 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212–211 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences211–211 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences206–205 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205–204 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences204–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences211.18 Mya205.7 Mya215.9 Mya200.9 Mya

4 occurrences of Plagiosaurus 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

4 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

Trossingen — 51.90°N, 11.07°EGrès à Avicula contorta — 48.62°N, 6.33°E

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The named rock units Plagiosaurus 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.

Plagiosaurus and its relatives

Late Triassic

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

Found in the same rock

70 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Plagiosaurus, 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 4 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 Plagiosaurus

Credit
ДиБгд at Russian Wikipedia
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itPlagiosaurinae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jaekel 1914