Rhachiocephalus

Rhachiocephalus is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsid.

Rhachiocephalus

Ghedoghedo · 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
RhachiocephalidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Dicynodontia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 259.857 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 20 of 20 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 20 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 1 occurrence259–259 Mya — about 1 occurrence259–259 Mya — about 1 occurrence259–259 Mya — about 1 occurrence259–258 Mya — about 1 occurrence258–258 Mya — about 1 occurrence258–258 Mya — about 1 occurrence258–257 Mya — about 1 occurrence257–257 Mya — about 1 occurrence257–257 Mya — about 1 occurrence257–256 Mya — about 1 occurrence256–256 Mya — about 1 occurrence256–256 Mya — about 1 occurrence256–256 Mya — about 1 occurrence256–255 Mya — about 1 occurrence255–255 Mya — about 1 occurrence255–255 Mya — about 1 occurrence255–254 Mya — about 1 occurrence254–254 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences254–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences254–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences260.4 Mya251.4 Mya

20 occurrences of Rhachiocephalus on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

20 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

4 formations

  • Usili Formation · Songea GroupRuvuma · TZ · 259.857–254.14 Mya6
  • Teekloof Formation · Beaufort GroupWestern Cape · ZA · 259.857–254.14 Mya1
  • Normandien Formation · Beaufort GroupFree State · ZA · 259.857–251.902 Mya1
  • Middleton/Balfour Formation · Beaufort GroupEastern Cape · ZA · 259.857–254.14 Mya1
Usili — 10.38°S, 35.08°EUsili — 10.20°S, 35.38°EUsili — 10.30°S, 35.07°ETeekloof — 31.91°S, 23.89°ENormandien — 29.03°S, 26.40°EMiddleton/Balfour — 32.25°S, 24.53°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Rhachiocephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhachiocephalus and its relatives

Permian

Where Rhachiocephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

33 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Rhachiocephalus, 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 20 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 Rhachiocephalus

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

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Rhachiocephalus magnus · gpit:PV-60755

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 itRhachiocephalidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Seeley 1898