Karauridae

The Karauridae are a family of stem-group salamanders (Caudata) that are known from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous in Central Asia, Northern Asia and Western Europe. The family includes four members: Karaurus from the Middle-Late Jurassic Karabastau Formation of Kazakhstan, Kokartus from the Middle Jurassic Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan, Marmorerpeton from the Middle Jurassic Forest Marble Formation of England and Kilmaluag Formation of Scotland, and Kuzbassia from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) Ilek Formation. The members are some of the oldest known salamanders. The family is united by several morphological characters, including sculptured skull roof bones, bicapitate ribs, and an irregular interparietal seam. Like some modern salamanders, karaurids were neotenic. Members of the family likely fed via suction feeding on small fish and invertebrates. The Early Cretaceous Siberian Kulgeriherpeton has been suggested to be a karaurid by some authors.

Karauridae

Ghedoghedo · 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
CaudataPBDB
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 3.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 161.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 174.7 Mya to 154.8 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 5 of 6 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 6 occurrencesLate Jurassic175–175 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences175–174 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences174–173 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences173–172 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences172–172 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences172–171 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences171–170 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170–169 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences169–168 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences166–165 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences164–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences161–161 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences161–160 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences160–159 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences159–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences165.3 Mya161.5 Mya175.2 Mya154.3 Mya

6 occurrences of Karauridae on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

6 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

3 formations

Balabansai — 41.33°N, 72.11°EBalabansai — 41.12°N, 73.43°EItat — 55.65°N, 89.18°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°E

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The named rock units Karauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Karauridae and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Karauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

47 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Karauridae, 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 6 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 Karauridae

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Karauridae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itCaudata through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ivachnenko 1978