Scutosaurus

Scutosaurus is an extinct genus of pareiasaurian reptile. Fossils have been found in the Sokolki Assemblage Zone of the Malokinelskaya Formation and Salarevo Formation in European Russia, close to the Ural Mountains, dating to the late Permian (Lopingian) between 259 and 252 million years ago. Its genus name refers to large plates of armor scattered across its body. With a body mass suggested to exceed 1 tonne (2,200 lb), it was one of the largest reptiles of the Permian period.

Scutosaurus

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
PareiasauridaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Pareiasauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 254.14 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 15 of 15 occurrencesPermian264–264 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences259–258 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences258–257 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences257–256 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences256–256 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences256–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences254–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences264.8 Mya253.6 Mya

15 occurrences of Scutosaurus 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

15 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

Salarevo — 61.19°N, 46.63°EIlyinskoe — 55.02°N, 48.83°EMalokinelskaya — 53.47°N, 52.14°EPoldarsa — 60.58°N, 45.43°E

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The named rock units Scutosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scutosaurus and its relatives

Permian

Where Scutosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

47 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Scutosaurus, 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 15 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 Scutosaurus

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

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itPareiasauridae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hartmann-Weinberg 1930