Somphospondyli
Somphospondyli is an extinct clade of titanosauriform sauropods that lived from the Late Jurassic until the end of the Late Cretaceous, comprising all titanosauriforms more closely related to Titanosauria proper than Brachiosauridae. The remains of somphospondylans have been discovered on all continents.
SSR2000 · 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
- TitanosauriformesPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Sauropoda
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Sauropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Sauropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Sauropoda
Time the record covers
At least 89 million years on record.
The record covers at least 161.5 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 174.7 Mya to 66 Mya.
923 occurrences of Somphospondyli on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
923 occurrences- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassicunder 1%
- Early Cretaceous15%
- Late Cretaceous84%
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
207 formations
- Vitakri Formation · Fort Munro Group83
- Lameta Formation33
- Allen Formation · Malargüe Group33
- Winton Formation · Rolling Downs Group31
- Anacleto Formation · Neuquén Group27
- Adamantina Formation · Bauru Group22
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The named rock units Somphospondyli has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 183 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 78 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Somphospondyli and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Somphospondyli and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
907 taxa- Titanosauridae71 sites
- Titanosauria54 sites
- Theropoda53 sites
- Testudines27 sites
- Crocodylia22 sites
- Dinosauria20 sites
- Dromaeosauridae18 sites
- Abelisauridae17 sites
- Hadrosauridae16 sites
- Alamosaurus sanjuanensis14 sites
- Lithostrotia13 sites
- Lepisosteidae12 sites
- Osteichthyes12 sites
- Sauropoda12 sites
- Coelurosauria11 sites
- Phuwiangosaurus sirindhornae11 sites
- Gastropoda10 sites
- Anura9 sites
- Bivalvia9 sites
- Crocodyliformes9 sites
- Lepidotes8 sites
- Nodosauridae8 sites
- Ornithomimidae8 sites
- Plantae8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 745 sites for Somphospondyli, and this reads 240 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
496 references- New Balochisaurus (Balochisauridae, Titanosauria, Sauropoda) and Vitakridrinda (Theropoda) remains From Pakistan28
- Revision of South American titanosaurid dinosaurs: palaeobiological, palaeobiogeographical and phylogenetic aspects21
- Reappraisal of sauropod dinosaur diversity in the Upper Cretaceous Winton Formation of Queensland, Australia, through 3D digitisation and description of new specimens16
- Biodiversity of saurischian dinosaurs from the latest Cretaceous Park of Pakistan16
- Los vertebrados mesozoicos del Uruguay y sus relaciones con los de áreas vecinas [The Mesozoic vertebrates of Uruguay and their relationships with those of neighboring areas]16
- Review of Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs from Central Asia15
- The Late Cretaceous dinosaur track record of Bolivia – review and perspective14
- European titanosaurids14
- A glance on the mineral deposits and stratigraphic sequential variations and structures in different sections of Indus Basin (Pakistan): new titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs from the latest Maastrichtian Vitakri Formation of Pakistan12
- The end of the dinosaur era in Patagonia (NatGeo Project)10
- Sauropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of Malawi9
- Revision of Romanian sauropod dinosaurs reveals high titanosaur diversity and body-size disparity on the latest Cretaceous Haţeg Island, with implications for titanosaurian biogeography8
Each of the 923 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. 484 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 Somphospondyli
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- SSR2000
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Somphospondyli 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 itTitanosauriformes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wilson and Sereno 1998