Qianichthyosaurus

Qianichthyosaurus is an extinct genus of ichthyosaur from the Ladinian and Carnian stages of the Late Triassic epoch. Its fossils have been found in southeastern China, in Carnian rocks of the Falang Formation near Huangtutang, Guizhou. The type species is Qianichthyosaurus zhoui, named by Chun Li in 1999. A second species, Qianichthyosaurus xingyiensis, was named from older (Ladinian) deposits in the Falang Formation in 2013 by Pengfei Yang and colleagues. Complete Qianichthyosaurus fossils are common in the Xiaowa Formation, with both juveniles and pregnant specimens being known; its larger contemporaries, Guizhouichthyosaurus and Guanlingsaurus, are rarer.

Qianichthyosaurus

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 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
ToretocnemidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ichthyosauria
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ichthyopterygia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ichthyosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Ichthyosauria
Length
1.5 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 3.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 237 Mya to 233.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 239.48 Mya to 227.3 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 3 of 7 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 4 of 7 occurrencesLate Triassic240–239 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences237–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences232–231 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237 Mya233.6 Mya240 Mya226.8 Mya

7 occurrences of Qianichthyosaurus 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

7 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

Falang — 25.16°N, 104.79°EFalang — 25.13°N, 104.75°EFalang — 28.70°N, 108.26°EXiaowa — 25.90°N, 105.42°EXiaowa — 26.63°N, 107.27°E

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The named rock units Qianichthyosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Qianichthyosaurus and its relatives

Late Triassic

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

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Qianichthyosaurus, 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

6 references

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 Qianichthyosaurus

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Qianichthyosaurus 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 itToretocnemidae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Li 1999