Scymnosaurus

Scymnosaurus is a dubious genus of therocephalian therapsids from the Middle Permian of what is now South Africa based upon the fossils of large, but indeterminate, early therocephalians. The genus and its type species S. ferox was named by Robert Broom in 1903, followed by S. watsoni in 1915. A third species, S. major, was named by Lieuwe Dirk Boonstra in 1954, who also referred many more specimens to the genus as Scymnosaurus sp.

Scymnosaurus

Robert Broom · Public Domain · 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
ScymnosaurinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Therocephalia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 4.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 259.857 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 10 of 10 occurrencesPermian264–264 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264.8 Mya259.4 Mya

10 occurrences of Scymnosaurus 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

10 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

1 formation

Abrahamskraal — 32.91°S, 22.03°EAbrahamskraal — 32.86°S, 22.11°EAbrahamskraal — 32.70°S, 21.75°E

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The named rock units Scymnosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scymnosaurus and its relatives

Permian

Where Scymnosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

29 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Scymnosaurus, 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

2 references

Each of the 10 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Scymnosaurus

Credit
Robert Broom
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scymnosaurus 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 itScymnosaurinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Broom 1903