Heloderma texana

Heloderma texana is an extinct species of heloderm lizard known from Miocene sediments in Big Bend National Park. It is the oldest fossil record of the genus Heloderma in North America.

Heloderma texana

C. Henrik Woolley, David J. Bottjer and Nathan D Smith · 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
HelodermaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Varanoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 4.6 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.1 Mya and 18.5 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceMiocene23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23.6 Mya18 Mya

1 occurrence of Heloderma texana on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

1 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

1 formation

Delaho — 29.20°N, 103.20°W

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The named rock units Heloderma texana has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Heloderma texana and its relatives

Miocene

Where Heloderma texana and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Heloderma texana, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Heloderma texana

Credit
C. Henrik Woolley, David J. Bottjer and Nathan D Smith
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Heloderma texana 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 itHeloderma through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stevens 1977