Chroniosaurus
Chroniosaurus is an extinct genus of chroniosuchid stegocephalian, often considered a reptiliomorph but possibly a stem-tetrapod, from upper Permian deposits of Novgorod, Orenburg and Vologda Regions, Russia. It was first named by Tverdokhlebova in 1972 and the type species is Chroniosaurus dongusensis.

DiBgd · 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
- ChroniosuchidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At most 11 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 254.14 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
13 occurrences of Chroniosaurus on record, most of them in the Permian. 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
13 occurrences- Permian100%
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
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The named rock units Chroniosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Chroniosaurus and its relatives
PermianWhere Chroniosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
195 taxa- Microphon exiguus5 sites
- Toyemia tverdochlebovi5 sites
- Dvinosaurus4 sites
- Mutovinia stella4 sites
- Dvinosaurus primus3 sites
- Isadia aristoviensis3 sites
- Microphon3 sites
- Pareiasauridae3 sites
- Scutosaurus karpinskii3 sites
- Strelnia certa3 sites
- Suchonellina3 sites
- Toyemia3 sites
- Toyemia blumentalis3 sites
- Eurynotoidiidae2 sites
- Geryonichthys2 sites
- Geryonichthys longus2 sites
- Isadia2 sites
- Isadia suchonensis2 sites
- Microphon arcanus2 sites
- Plotnikovichthys gorodokensis2 sites
- Prasuchonella2 sites
- Sludalepis spinosa2 sites
- Suchogorgon golubevi2 sites
- Suminia2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Chroniosaurus, 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
4 references- Revision of the Late Permian Chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from Eastern Europe8
- Type and reference sections of the Permian–Triassic continental sequences of the East European Platform: main isotope, magnetic, and biotic events3
- Type and reference sections of the Middle and Upper Permian of the Volga and Kama River Regions: A Field Guidebook of XVIII International Congress on Carboniferous and Permian1
- Upper Permian vertebrates and their sedimentological context in the South Urals, Russia1
Each of the 13 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 Chroniosaurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- DiBgd
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Chroniosaurus 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 itChroniosuchidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Tverdokhlebova 1972