Sulcimentisauria
Silesauridae is an extinct family of early dinosauriforms which lived during the Triassic Period. Their fossils have been found in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, reaching peak diversity early in the Late Triassic. The exact affinities of silesaurids are debated, and various studies come to different conclusions regarding the relationship between silesaurids and early dinosaurs.

Zissoudisctrucker · 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
- SilesauridaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia
Time the record covers
At least 21 million years on record.
The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 205.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 201.4 Mya.
16 occurrences of Sulcimentisauria on record, most of them in the Late 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
16 occurrencesThese 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
8 formations
- Chinle Formation8
- Drawno Beds Formation2
- Caturrita Formation · Rosário do Sul Group1
- Cooper Canyon Formation · Dockum Group1
- Grabowa Formation1
- Timezgadiouine Formation · Argana Group1
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The named rock units Sulcimentisauria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Sulcimentisauria and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Sulcimentisauria and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
102 taxa- Kwanasaurus williamparkeri6 sites
- Dinosauriformes4 sites
- Archosauriformes3 sites
- Silesaurus opolensis3 sites
- Coleoptera2 sites
- Cyclotosaurus intermedius2 sites
- Darwinula2 sites
- Drepanosauridae2 sites
- Metoposaurus krasiejowensis2 sites
- Phytosauria2 sites
- Polonosuchus silesiacus2 sites
- Reptilia2 sites
- Silesauridae2 sites
- Stagonolepis olenkae2 sites
- Typothorax2 sites
- Aetosauria1 site
- Ahvaytum bahndooiveche1 site
- Apachesaurus gregorii1 site
- Avicranium renestoi1 site
- Bivalvia1 site
- Branchiopoda1 site
- Brasilitherium riograndensis1 site
- Calyptosuchus wellesi1 site
- Ceratodus silesiacus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Sulcimentisauria, 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
10 references- Non-dinosaurian dinosauromorphs from the Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic) of the Eagle Basin, northern Colorado: Dromomeron romeri (Lagerpetidae) and a new taxon, Kwanasaurus williamparkeri (Silesauridae)6
- A beaked herbivorous archosaur with dinosaur affinities from the early Late Triassic of Poland2
- Rethinking dinosaur origins: oldest known equatorial dinosaur-bearing assemblage (mid-late Carnian Popo Agie FM, Wyoming, USA)1
- A new silesaurid from the upper Ntawere Formation of Zambia (Middle Triassic) demonstrates the rapid diversification of Silesauridae (Avemetatarsalia, Dinosauriformes)1
- The first basal dinosauriform (Silesauridae) from the Late Triassic of Morocco1
- The paleobiology of Coelophysis bauri (Cope) from the Upper Triassic (Apachean) Whitaker quarry, New Mexico, with detailed analysis of a single quarry block1
- A Late Triassic dinosauriform from south Brazil and the origin of the ornithischian predentary bone1
- The temnospondyl amphibian Cyclotosaurus from the Upper Triassic of Poland1
- Eucoelophysis baldwini, a new theropod dinosaur from the Upper Triassic of New Mexico, and the status of the original types of Coelophysis1
- A new ornithischian dinosaur from the Triassic of North America1
Each of the 16 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 content1
Picture of Sulcimentisauria
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Zissoudisctrucker
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sulcimentisauria 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 itSilesauridae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Martz and Small 2019