Prolacertidae

Prolacertidae is an extinct family of archosauromorph reptiles that lived during the Early Triassic epoch. It was named in 1935 by the British palaeontologist Francis Rex Parrington to include the species Prolacerta broomi of South Africa and Antarctica. In 1979 a second species, Kadimakara australiensis, was described from Australia. Several other genera, such as Macrocnemus, Pamelaria and Prolacertoides, have also been assigned to this family in the past, but these have been placed elsewhere by later studies, leaving Prolacerta and Kadimakara as the only well-supported members.

Prolacertidae

Martin D. Ezcurra · CC BY 4.0 · 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
CrocopodaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At least 9.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 250.8 Mya to 241.464 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 237 Mya.

Permian — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 15 of 17 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 17 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences252–251 Mya — about 2 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 2 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–248 Mya — about 1 occurrence248–248 Mya — about 1 occurrence248–247 Mya — about 1 occurrence247–247 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences250.8 Mya241.464 Mya252.4 Mya236.5 Mya

17 occurrences of Prolacertidae on record, most of them in the Early 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

17 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

9 formations

Fremouw — 85.13°S, 174.83°WFremouw — 85.05°S, 172.50°EFremouw — 85.22°S, 175.50°WFremouw — 85.22°S, 177.00°WKatberg — 30.50°S, 25.97°EKatberg — 28.28°S, 29.13°EArcadia — 24.83°S, 148.00°ECharkabozh — 69.28°N, 49.93°EBukobay — 51.44°N, 55.52°ENormandien — 28.27°S, 29.13°EPetropavlovka — 51.75°N, 55.08°ENadkrasnokamenskaya — 65.12°N, 58.62°EBalfour — 33.00°S, 20.45°E

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The named rock units Prolacertidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Prolacertidae and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Prolacertidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

75 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Prolacertidae, 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

9 references

Each of the 17 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 Prolacertidae

Credit
Martin D. Ezcurra
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Prolacertidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itCrocopoda through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

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