Trirachodon
Trirachodon is an extinct genus of cynodonts. Fossils have been found in the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group in South Africa and the Omingonde Formation of Namibia, dating back to the Early and Middle Triassic.

Smokeybjb · 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
- TrirachodontidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 15 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 251.902 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
8 occurrences of Trirachodon on record, most of them in the Middle 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
8 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
3 formations
- Burgersdorp Formation · Beaufort Group5
- Ntawere Formation1
- Omingonde Formation · Karoo Group1
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The named rock units Trirachodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Trirachodon and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Trirachodon and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
25 taxa- Microgomphodon oligocynus2 sites
- Procolophonidae2 sites
- Aelurosuchus browni1 site
- Batrachosuchus browni1 site
- Batrachosuchus concordi1 site
- Bauria cynops1 site
- Bolotridon frerensis1 site
- Cherninia megarhina1 site
- Cynognathus crateronotus1 site
- Diademodon1 site
- Eohyosaurus wolvaardti1 site
- Erythrosuchus africanus1 site
- Kannemeyeria1 site
- Kannemeyeria simocephala1 site
- Kombuisia frerensis1 site
- Luangwa drysdalli1 site
- Mastodonsauridae1 site
- Nythosaurus browni1 site
- Palacrodon browni1 site
- Procolophoninae1 site
- Sangusaurus edentatus1 site
- Stanocephalosaurus pronus1 site
- Sysphinctostoma smithi1 site
- Unio1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Trirachodon, 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- The distribution of the Karroo vertebrate fauna3
- A new species of basal rhynchosaur (Diapsida: Archosauromorpha) from the early Middle Triassic of South Africa, and the early evolution of Rhynchosauria1
- Distribution and diversity patterns of Triassic cynodonts (Therapsida, Cynodontia) in Gondwana1
- Vertebrate Burrow Complexes from the Early Triassic Cynognathus Zone (Driekoppen Formation, Beaufort Group) of the Karoo Basin, South Africa1
- A re-examination of the Karroo succession and fossil localities of part of the Upper Luangwa Valley1
- Preliminary notice of some new fossil Reptiles collected by Mr. Alfred Brown at Aliwal North, S. Africa1
Each of the 8 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 Trirachodon
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Smokeybjb
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Trirachodon was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Trirachodon”
- 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 itTrirachodontidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Seeley 1895