Eonatator

Eonatator is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is a close relative of Halisaurus, and part of the same subfamily, the Halisaurinae. It is known from the Late Cretaceous of North America, Colombia and Sweden. Originally, this taxon was included within Halisaurus, but was placed in its own genus, which also led to the subfamily Halisaurinae being created for the two genera.

Eonatator

Nobu Tamura ( https://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 3.0 · 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
Sits inside
HalisauriniPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Mosasauridae
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Length
2.8 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 14 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 85.7 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 9 of 9 occurrencesLate Cretaceous86–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences81–81 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences76–76 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences86.2 Mya71.7 Mya

9 occurrences of Eonatator 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

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

Niobrara — 38.77°N, 100.93°WNivel de Lutitas y Arenas — 4.57°N, 74.49°W

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The named rock units Eonatator 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.

Eonatator and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

88 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Eonatator, 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

5 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 Eonatator

Credit
Nobu Tamura ( https://spinops.blogspot.com )
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Eonatator 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

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 itHalisaurini through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bardet et al. 2005