Thaumastosaurus

Thaumastosaurus is an extinct genus of frogs in the family Pyxicephalidae. Five species are known, all from the Eocene of western Europe, including France, England, and Switzerland. Specimens of the species T. gezei from the Quercy Phosphorites of France are known for their exceptional preservation, providing three-dimensional images of the animal's life appearance.

Thaumastosaurus

Ghedo · 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
AnuraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 52 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 15.98 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 14 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesEocene — about 11 of 14 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 14 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 14 occurrencesMiocene95–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–90 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences90–87 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–36 Mya — about 5 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 5 occurrences33–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89.8 Mya37.71 Mya95 Mya14 Mya

14 occurrences of Thaumastosaurus on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

14 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

Quercy Phosphorites — 44.27°N, 1.63°EHeadon Hill — 50.72°N, 1.59°WHeadon Hill — 50.67°N, 1.54°WHeadon Beds — 50.72°N, 1.59°WSchönleiten — 47.67°N, 14.80°E

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The named rock units Thaumastosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thaumastosaurus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Thaumastosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

215 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Thaumastosaurus, 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

7 references

Each of the 14 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 Thaumastosaurus

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

No 3D scan of Thaumastosaurus 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 itAnura through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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