Scincomorpha

Scincomorpha is an infraorder and clade of lizards including skinks (Scincidae) and their close relatives. These include the living families Cordylidae, Gerrhosauridae, and Xantusiidae, as well as many extinct taxa. Other roughly equivalent terms include the suborder Scinciformata, or the superfamily Scincoidea, though different authors use these terms in a broader or more restricted usage relative to true skinks. They first appear in the fossil record about 170 million years ago, during the Jurassic period.

Scincomorpha

Benjamint444 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
SquamataPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 161 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 3.55 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 1.8 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 11 of 375 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 2 of 375 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 20 of 375 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 303 of 375 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 9 of 375 occurrencesEocene — about 14 of 375 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 7 of 375 occurrencesMiocene — about 8 of 375 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 375 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 375 occurrences172–166 Mya — about 9 occurrences166–160 Mya — about 2 occurrences154–149 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences149–143 Mya — about 2 occurrences143–137 Mya — about 2 occurrences137–132 Mya — about 2 occurrences132–126 Mya — about 2 occurrences126–120 Mya — about 5 occurrences120–114 Mya — about 5 occurrences114–109 Mya — about 3 occurrences103–97 Mya — about 14 occurrences97–91 Mya — about 19 occurrences91–86 Mya — about 4 occurrences86–80 Mya — about 58 occurrences80–74 Mya — about 74 occurrences74–69 Mya — about 89 occurrences69–63 Mya — about 50 occurrences63–57 Mya — about 2 occurrences57–51 Mya — about 6 occurrences51–46 Mya — about 4 occurrences46–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–34 Mya — about 3 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–23 Mya — about 6 occurrences23–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–11 Mya — about 3 occurrences5.7–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence165.3 Mya3.55 Mya172 Mya0 Mya

375 occurrences of Scincomorpha on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

375 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

85 formations

Lance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WLance — 43.18°N, 104.53°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 43.13°N, 104.49°WLance — 43.80°N, 104.62°WLance — 43.24°N, 104.29°WLance — 42.76°N, 104.43°WLance — 44.24°N, 109.02°WLance — 44.37°N, 107.60°WHell Creek — 47.80°N, 106.10°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 106.40°WHell Creek — 47.55°N, 107.13°WHell Creek — 47.57°N, 107.10°WHell Creek — 47.52°N, 107.18°WHell Creek — 47.53°N, 106.92°WHell Creek — 47.60°N, 106.27°WHell Creek — 45.50°N, 103.10°WHell Creek — 45.64°N, 103.49°WBaruungoyot — 43.49°N, 101.13°EBaruungoyot — 43.32°N, 99.83°EBaruungoyot — 43.15°N, 99.45°EBaruungoyot — 43.49°N, 101.28°EBaruungoyot — 43.30°N, 99.60°EBaruungoyot — 43.52°N, 109.12°EBaruungoyot — 43.47°N, 101.52°EKaiparowits — 37.80°N, 111.50°WKaiparowits — 37.40°N, 111.20°WKaiparowits — 37.42°N, 111.77°WKaiparowits — 37.20°N, 112.88°WAguja — 29.32°N, 103.52°WAguja — 29.10°N, 103.17°WAguja — 29.34°N, 103.59°WCedar Mountain — 38.66°N, 111.24°WCedar Mountain — 38.94°N, 111.08°WCedar Mountain — 38.98°N, 111.04°WCedar Mountain — 39.00°N, 110.00°WCedar Mountain — 38.64°N, 111.37°WDjadokhta — 44.16°N, 103.69°EDjadokhta — 43.66°N, 100.90°EDjadokhta — 44.22°N, 103.27°EDjadokhta — 44.00°N, 104.00°EOldman — 49.10°N, 110.94°WOldman — 49.08°N, 110.84°WOldman — 49.08°N, 110.68°WOldman — 49.16°N, 110.72°WOldman — 50.70°N, 111.50°WStraight Cliffs — 37.80°N, 111.50°WStraight Cliffs — 37.64°N, 112.06°WStraight Cliffs — 37.40°N, 111.20°WStraight Cliffs — 37.60°N, 111.97°WStraight Cliffs — 37.49°N, 111.89°WStraight Cliffs — 37.62°N, 112.16°WStraight Cliffs — 37.60°N, 111.95°WFrenchman — 49.30°N, 108.40°WWahweap — 37.59°N, 112.90°WWahweap — 37.63°N, 112.12°WWahweap — 37.60°N, 111.35°WWahweap — 37.56°N, 111.73°WEl Gallo — 30.20°N, 115.79°WEl Gallo — 30.05°N, 115.76°WForest Marble — 51.87°N, 1.27°WForest Marble — 50.71°N, 2.78°WForest Marble — 51.73°N, 1.98°WForest Marble — 51.51°N, 2.16°WNaturita — 37.80°N, 111.50°WNaturita — 37.65°N, 112.97°WMarshalltown — 40.30°N, 74.30°WFort Union — 45.20°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 46.05°N, 104.48°WFort Union — 47.60°N, 107.00°WScollard — 51.91°N, 112.97°WDinosaur Park — 50.77°N, 111.46°WDinosaur Park — 49.96°N, 110.27°WBayan Mandahu — 41.80°N, 106.74°EBayan Mandahu — 41.74°N, 107.04°ECsehbánya — 47.22°N, 17.60°EDenver — 39.70°N, 104.70°WRâul Mare — 45.57°N, 22.87°EKuwajima — 36.17°N, 136.63°EFruitland — 36.49°N, 108.49°WFruitland — 36.27°N, 108.26°WFruitland — 36.17°N, 107.92°W

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The named rock units Scincomorpha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 61 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scincomorpha and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Scincomorpha and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

2,122 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 219 sites for Scincomorpha, 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

138 references

Each of the 375 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. 126 further references are not listed. 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 Scincomorpha

Credit
Benjamint444
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scincomorpha was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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

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 itSquamata through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Camp 1923)