Helodermoides

Helodermoides is an extinct genus of anguid lizards from the Oligocene of North America. The genus is monotypic, including only the species Helodermoides tuberculatus. Helodermoides belongs to an extinct subfamily of anguids called Glyptosaurinae. In addition to many fragmentary bones, several complete skeletons of Helodermoides are known. Like other glyptosaurines, Helodermoides was covered in small scale-like bones called osteoderms. The osteoderms covering its skull are hexagonal, tightly interlocking, raised, and rounded.

Helodermoides

Smokeybjb · 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
GlyptosaurinaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Anguidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Glyptosaurinae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Glyptosaurinae

Time the record covers

At least 5.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 39.7 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 45.9 Mya to 31.8 Mya.

Eocene — about 35 of 41 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 41 occurrencesOligocene46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 5 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 5 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 5 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 5 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 5 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 5 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences39.7 Mya33.9 Mya46.4 Mya31.3 Mya

41 occurrences of Helodermoides on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

41 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

6 formations

Chadron — 46.10°N, 103.30°WChadron — 45.47°N, 112.62°WChadron — 41.96°N, 104.38°WChadron — 42.00°N, 104.20°WChadron — 42.67°N, 105.31°WChadron — 43.00°N, 104.50°WChadron — 42.97°N, 105.50°WChadron — 43.00°N, 104.23°WChadron — 42.80°N, 103.10°WChadron — 42.69°N, 103.42°WChadron — 45.90°N, 112.25°WChadron — 43.20°N, 107.10°WBrule — 42.86°N, 103.91°WBrule — 42.76°N, 105.38°WBrule — 42.40°N, 103.80°WBrule — 42.90°N, 105.20°WBrule — 42.63°N, 105.30°WWhite River — 43.20°N, 108.20°WWhite River — 43.20°N, 107.10°WRenova — 45.90°N, 112.25°WUinta — 40.07°N, 109.70°WUinta — 40.08°N, 109.27°WPipestone Creek — 45.90°N, 112.25°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Helodermoides and its relatives

Eocene

Where Helodermoides and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

218 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Helodermoides, 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

7 references

Each of the 41 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 Helodermoides

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

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Helodermoides tuberculatus · usnm:paleobiology:13861

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 itGlyptosaurinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Douglass 1903