Clevosauridae
Clevosaurs are an extinct group of rhynchocephalian reptiles from the Triassic and Jurassic periods.

Jorge Blanco · CC BY 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
- EusphenodontiaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 34 million years on record.
The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 192.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 184.2 Mya.
39 occurrences of Clevosauridae on record, most of them in the Late 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
39 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
10 formations
- McCoy Brook Formation · Meriden Group6
- La Boca Formation · Huizachal Group4
- Lufeng Formation3
- Lossiemouth Sandstone Formation2
- Caturrita Formation · Rosário do Sul Group2
- Cooper Canyon Formation · Dockum Group1
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The named rock units Clevosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Clevosauridae and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Clevosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
160 taxa- Clevosaurus21 sites
- Archosauria9 sites
- Kuehneosaurus8 sites
- Planocephalosaurus6 sites
- Diphydontosaurus5 sites
- Lepidosauria5 sites
- Sphenodontia5 sites
- Terrestrisuchus5 sites
- Thecodontia5 sites
- Theropoda5 sites
- Diphydontosaurus avonis4 sites
- Sigmala4 sites
- Suchia4 sites
- Clevosaurus bairdi3 sites
- Clevosaurus minor3 sites
- Pelecymala robustus3 sites
- Phytosauria3 sites
- Planocephalosaurus robinsonae3 sites
- Protosuchus micmac3 sites
- Pterosauria3 sites
- Sauropodomorpha3 sites
- Sigmala sigmala3 sites
- Ammosaurus2 sites
- Birgeria2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 36 sites for Clevosauridae, 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
24 references- The ecology of a Late Triassic reptile assemblage from Gloucestershire, England5
- Mesozoic lepidosauromorphs of Mexico: a review and discussion of taxonomic assignments4
- Assemblages of small tetrapods from British Late Triassic fissure deposits3
- Early Jurassic small tetrapods from the McCoy Brook Formation of Nova Scotia, Canada3
- A new sphenodontian (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from the McCoy Brook Formation (Lower Jurassic) of Nova Scotia, Canada3
- A distinctive Late Triassic microvertebrate fissure fauna and a new species of Clevosaurus (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from Woodleaze Quarry, Gloucestershire, UK2
- Late Triassic-Early Jurassic sphenodontians from China and the phylogeny of the Sphenodontida2
- A new clevosaurid from the Triassic (Carnian) of Brazil and the rise of sphenodontians in Gondwana1
- A Triassic averostran-line theropod from Switzerland and the early evolution of dinosaurs1
- The terrestrial fauna of the Late Triassic Pant-y-ffynnon Quarry fissures, South Wales, UK and a new species of Clevosaurus (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia)1
- Vertebrates from the Late Triassic Thecodontosaurus-bearing rocks of Durdham Down, Clifton (Bristol, UK)1
- A taxonomic and biostratigraphic re-evaluation of the Post Quarry vertebrate assemblage from the Cooper Canyon Formation (Dockum Group, Upper Triassic) of southern Garza County, western Texas1
Each of the 39 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. 12 further references are not listed. 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 Clevosauridae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jorge Blanco
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Clevosauridae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Clevosaur”
- 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 itEusphenodontia through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fraser 1993