Dvinosaurus
Dvinosaurus is an extinct genus of amphibious temnospondyls localized to regions of western and central Russia during the middle and late Permian, approximately 265-254 million years ago. Its discovery was first noted in 1921 by Russian paleontologist Vladimir Prokhorovich Amalitskii in a posthumously published paper that documents the findings of a site in Russia's Arkhangelsk District. Its name is derived from the proximity of this site to the Northern Dvina River.

Dmitry Bogdanov · 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
- DvinosauridaePBDB
- 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 4.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 264.28 Mya to 259.857 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 266.9 Mya to 254.14 Mya.
26 occurrences of Dvinosaurus 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
26 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
8 formations
- Salarevo Formation4
- Poldarsa Formation3
- Malokinelskaya Formation2
- Urpalov Formation · Kotelnich Group1
- Ilyinskoe Formation1
- Kutuluk Formation1
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The named rock units Dvinosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dvinosaurus and its relatives
PermianWhere Dvinosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
273 taxa- Isadia aristoviensis6 sites
- Scutosaurus karpinskii6 sites
- Toyemia blumentalis6 sites
- Karpinskiosaurus secundus5 sites
- Suchonellina5 sites
- Toyemia tverdochlebovi5 sites
- Isadia4 sites
- Mutovinia stella4 sites
- Toyemia4 sites
- Annatherapsidus petri3 sites
- Chroniosaurus dongusensis3 sites
- Chroniosaurus levis3 sites
- Dicynodontidae3 sites
- Geryonichthys3 sites
- Inostrancevia latifrons3 sites
- Microphon3 sites
- Pareiasauridae3 sites
- Archosaurus rossicus2 sites
- Chroniosuchus licharevi2 sites
- Chroniosuchus paradoxus2 sites
- Clinocypris sp.2 sites
- Elginiidae2 sites
- Elph borealis2 sites
- Eurynotoidiidae2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Dvinosaurus, 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
12 references- Upper Permian vertebrates and their sedimentological context in the South Urals, Russia5
- Handbook of Paleoherpetology Part 3A2 Temnospondyli I4
- Permian and Triassic therocephals (Eutherapsida) of Eastern Europe4
- Type and reference sections of the Permian–Triassic continental sequences of the East European Platform: main isotope, magnetic, and biotic events3
- Notes on the pre-Jurassic tetrapods from USSR. III. Dvinosaurus amalitzki, a perennibranchiate stegocephalian from the Upper Permian of North Dvina3
- 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
- Vyazniki Biotic Assemblage of the Terminal Permian1
- [A new dvinosaur (Amphibia, Temnospondyli) from the Upper Tatarian of the middle Volga Region.]1
- [An enigmatic reptile from the Upper Permian of the Volga River Basin]1
- The Omo Group: Archives of the International Omo Research Expedition1
- On the cranial arterial system of the labyrinthodonts1
- Catalogue of Localities of Permian and Triassic Terrestrial Vertebrates of the Territiories of the USSR1
Each of the 26 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 content2
Picture of Dvinosaurus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dmitry Bogdanov
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dvinosaurus”
- 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 itDvinosauridae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Amalitzky 1921