Dolichosauridae

Dolichosauridae is a family of Cretaceous aquatic lizards. They are widely considered to be the earliest and most primitive members of Mosasauria, though some researchers have recovered them as more closely related to snakes.

Dolichosauridae

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
PythonomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 29 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 119.57 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 40 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 39 of 40 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 40 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences117–115 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences115–113 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences108–106 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences106–104 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–102 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences102–100 Mya — about 1 occurrence100–98 Mya — about 8 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 8 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 8 occurrences95–93 Mya — about 5 occurrences93–91 Mya — about 3 occurrences91–89 Mya — about 2 occurrences87–85 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–78 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences113.2 Mya83.6 Mya121 Mya65 Mya

40 occurrences of Dolichosauridae 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

40 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

16 formations

Greenhorn Limestone — 37.22°N, 103.60°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.00°N, 98.92°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.69°N, 103.94°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.74°N, 97.65°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.46°N, 103.05°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.65°N, 103.93°WCarlile Shale — 38.71°N, 98.91°WCarlile Shale — 42.74°N, 97.03°WCarlile Shale — 38.72°N, 99.32°WBeer Head Limestone — 50.90°N, 0.15°WBeer Head Limestone — 50.90°N, 0.41°WStarigrad Limestone — 43.19°N, 16.65°EAshville — 53.48°N, 102.24°WLa Cabaña — 43.34°N, 5.84°WBritton — 32.90°N, 97.04°WLake Waco — 31.59°N, 97.21°WNiobrara — 38.85°N, 100.17°WLower Chalk — 51.10°N, 1.26°EHolywell Nodular Chalk — 51.35°N, 0.46°EZig Zag Chalk — 51.33°N, 0.48°EWinton — 22.35°S, 143.09°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WTarrant — 32.61°N, 97.11°WDakota — 40.06°N, 97.34°W

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The named rock units Dolichosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dolichosauridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Dolichosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

242 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 36 sites for Dolichosauridae, 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

30 references

Each of the 40 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. 18 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 Dolichosauridae

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dolichosauridae 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 itPythonomorpha through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gervais 1852)