Tylosaurus proriger

Ryan Somma from Occoquan, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikidata/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
- TylosaurusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Mosasauridae
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Mosasauridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Mosasauridae
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 14 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 85.7 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Tylosaurus proriger 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
6 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
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
- Niobrara Formation · Colorado Group3
- Sprinkle Formation · Taylor Group1
- Telegraph Creek Formation1
- Pierre Shale Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Tylosaurus proriger has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Tylosaurus proriger and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Tylosaurus proriger and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
No other named taxon is catalogued from any of those sites.
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Tylosaurus proriger, and this reads all of them.
Entered from
4 references- The Skull of American Mosasaurs3
- Revisions to the biostratigraphy of the Moasasauridae (Squamata) in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobara Chalk (Late Cretaceous) of Kansas1
- Notes on mosasaurs from Texas1
- Systematics and morphology of American mosasaurs (Reptilia, Sauria)1
Each of the 6 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 content2

Picture of Tylosaurus proriger
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Ryan Somma from Occoquan, USA
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Allosaurus28YT
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTylosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1869)