Watsonisuchus

Watsonisuchus is an extinct genus of temnospondyl from the Early Triassic of Australia, Madagascar, and South Africa. It was up to 122 cm long and had a robust skull of 24 cm in length.

Watsonisuchus

Uncredited · 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
CapitosauriaPBDB
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 2.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 250.8 Mya to 248.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 244.4 Mya.

Permian — about 0 of 8 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 7 of 8 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 8 occurrencesMiddle Triassic252–252 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 1 occurrence252–251 Mya — about 1 occurrence251–251 Mya — about 1 occurrence251–251 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences250.8 Mya248.6 Mya252.4 Mya243.9 Mya

8 occurrences of Watsonisuchus on record, most of them in the Early 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 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

5 formations

Arcadia — 24.83°S, 148.00°EKnocklofty — 42.79°S, 147.28°EKnocklofty — 42.80°S, 147.52°ETerrigal — 33.43°S, 151.34°EBlina Shale — 17.86°S, 124.36°EBurgersdorp — 30.99°S, 26.33°E

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The named rock units Watsonisuchus 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.

Watsonisuchus and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Watsonisuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Watsonisuchus, 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

5 references

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 Watsonisuchus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Watsonisuchus 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 itCapitosauria through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ochev 1966