Hyphalosaurus

Hyphalosaurus is a genus of freshwater aquatic reptiles, belonging to the extinct order Choristodera. They lived during the early Cretaceous period, about 123-120 million years ago. The genus contains two species, H. lingyuanensis from the Yixian Formation and H. baitaigouensis from both the Yixian and Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning Province, China. They are among the best-known animals from the Jehol Biota, with thousands of fossil specimens representing all growth stages in scientific and private collections.

Hyphalosaurus

Tiouraren (Y.-C. Tsai) · CC BY-SA 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
ChoristoderaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 113.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 5 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous126–125 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences121–120 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences120–119 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences119–118 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences118–117 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–116 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences116–115 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences115–114 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences114–113 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126.3 Mya112.7 Mya

5 occurrences of Hyphalosaurus on record, most of them in the Early 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

5 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

Yixian — 41.13°N, 121.14°EYixian — 41.24°N, 119.40°EYixian — 41.53°N, 121.24°EJiufotang — 41.40°N, 119.98°E

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

Hyphalosaurus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Hyphalosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

15 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Hyphalosaurus, 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

5 references

Each of the 5 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 Hyphalosaurus

Credit
Tiouraren (Y.-C. Tsai)
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hyphalosaurus 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 itChoristodera through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gao et al. 1999