Rhineura

Rhineura is a genus of worm lizard endemic to North America. The genus has only one extant species but more are known from fossil record. They are also known as the North American worm lizards.

Rhineura

Caudatejake · 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
Also called
worm lizardPBDB
Sits inside
RhineuridaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Amphisbaenia
Life habit
fossorialPBDB, for Amphisbaenia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amphisbaenia

Time the record covers

At least 45 million years on record.

The record covers at least 45.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 51.1 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Eocene — about 5 of 25 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 14 of 25 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 4 of 25 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 25 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 25 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–33 Mya — about 7 occurrences33–31 Mya — about 8 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences30–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–14 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.7–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences45.9 Mya129 ka52 Mya0 Mya

25 occurrences of Rhineura on record, most of them in the Oligocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

25 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

Brule — 43.30°N, 102.50°WBrule — 43.39°N, 102.49°WBrule — 42.40°N, 103.80°WBrule — 42.76°N, 105.38°WBrule — 40.73°N, 103.11°WBrule — 40.80°N, 103.10°WRunningwater — 42.37°N, 103.32°WRunningwater — 41.70°N, 103.10°WBridger — 42.42°N, 109.35°WBridger — 42.70°N, 110.10°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WRosebud — 43.20°N, 101.80°WChadron — 46.10°N, 103.30°WYolomécatl — 17.46°N, 97.58°W"Oreodon Beds" — 42.40°N, 103.80°WWhite River — 40.80°N, 103.10°W

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The named rock units Rhineura has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhineura and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Rhineura and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

590 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Rhineura, 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

12 references

Each of the 25 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 Rhineura

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

No 3D scan of Rhineura 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 itRhineuridae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1861