Scalenodon
Scalenodon is an extinct genus of traversodontid cynodonts from the Middle Triassic of Africa and possibly Russia. The type species S. angustifrons was named in 1946 and several other species were named in the following years. Most of the species from Africa are now thought to belong to different genera than Scalenodon.

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
- TraversodontidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 10 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 247 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Scalenodon on record, most of them in the Middle 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
6 occurrences- Middle Triassic100%
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
- Manda Beds Formation5
- Santa Maria Formation · Rosário do Sul Group1
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The named rock units Scalenodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Scalenodon and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Scalenodon and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Aleodon brachyrhamphus1 site
- Chiniquodon theotonicus1 site
- Cynodontia1 site
- Diademodontidae1 site
- Dinodontosaurus1 site
- Dipnoi1 site
- Hybodontidae1 site
- Massetognathus ochagaviae1 site
- Nyasasaurus parringtoni1 site
- Protuberum cabralensis1 site
- Ruhuhuaria reiszi1 site
- Sangusaurus parringtonii1 site
- Stagonosuchus major1 site
- Stanocephalosaurus pronus1 site
- Temnospondyli1 site
- Unio1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Scalenodon, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
5 references- Postcanine occlusion in cynodonts and tritylodontids2
- A redescription of the Triassic kannemeyeriiform dicynodont Sangusaurus (Therapsida, Anomodontia), with an analysis of its feeding system1
- A new gomphodont cynodont (Traversodontidae) from the Middle–Late Triassic Dinodontosaurus Assemblage Zone of the Santa Maria Supersequence, Brazil1
- New Triassic archosaurs from Tanganyika including Mandasuchus and Teleocrater1
- On some Triassic cynodonts from Tanganyika1
Each of the 6 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 Scalenodon
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Scalenodon sp. · NHMUK:PAL:PV R 9391
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Scalenodon”
- 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 itTraversodontidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Crompton 1955