Cryptobranchus

Cryptobranchus

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
Also called
hellbenderPBDB
Sits inside
CryptobranchidaePBDB
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 57 million years on record.

The record covers at least 57.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 60.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Paleocene — about 2 of 9 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 9 occurrences62–60 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.1–2.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.1–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences57.5 Mya129 ka62 Mya0 Mya

9 occurrences of Cryptobranchus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

9 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

2 formations

Ravenscrag — 49.06°N, 102.75°WFort Union — 44.91°N, 109.02°W

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The named rock units Cryptobranchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cryptobranchus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Cryptobranchus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

301 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Cryptobranchus, 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

9 references

Each of the 9 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 Cryptobranchus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cryptobranchus 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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCryptobranchidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leuckart 1821