Lydekkerinidae
Lydekkerinidae is a family of stereospondyl temnospondyls that lived in the Early Triassic period. During this time period, lydekkerinids were widely distributed, with putative remains reported from Russia, Greenland, India, South Africa, Madagascar, Australia, and Antarctica. In contrast to most other stereospondyls, lydekkerinids were relatively small-bodied. The type genus is Lydekkerina, the namesake of the family and the best-known lydekkerinid.

DiBgd at English Wikipedia · 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
- SuperstesPBDB
- 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 most 13 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 259.857 Mya and 247 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
26 occurrences of Lydekkerinidae on record, most of them in the Early Triassic. 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
26 occurrencesThese 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
9 formations
- Normandien Formation · Beaufort Group6
- Knocklofty Formation6
- Wordy Creek Formation4
- Katberg Formation · Beaufort Group2
- Panchet Formation2
- Rewan Formation1
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The named rock units Lydekkerinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Lydekkerinidae and its relatives
Early TriassicWhere Lydekkerinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.
Found in the same rock
48 taxa- Chomatobatrachus halei6 sites
- Lydekkerina huxleyi5 sites
- Banksiops townrowi4 sites
- Lystrosaurus murrayi4 sites
- Broomistega putterilli3 sites
- Ceratodus3 sites
- Lystrosaurus curvatus3 sites
- Lystrosaurus declivis3 sites
- Saurichthys3 sites
- Thrinaxodon liorhinus3 sites
- Cleithrolepis2 sites
- Deltasaurus kimberleyensis2 sites
- Derwentia warreni2 sites
- Galesaurus planiceps2 sites
- Luzocephalus johanssoni2 sites
- Luzocephalus kochi2 sites
- Moschorhinus kitchingi2 sites
- Procolophon trigoniceps2 sites
- Prolacerta broomi2 sites
- Tetracynodon darti2 sites
- Watsonisuchus2 sites
- Aenigmasaurus grallator1 site
- Archosauriformes1 site
- Cosgriffiinae indet.1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Lydekkerinidae, 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
14 references- Lower Triassic Temnospondyli of Tasmania6
- On the dermal bones of the head in labyrinthodont stegocephalians and primitive Reptilia, with special reference to Eotriassic stegocephalians from East Greenland4
- The distribution of the Karroo vertebrate fauna2
- Fossil labyrinthodonts from the Panchet Series of the Indian Gondwanas2
- Labyrinthodonts from South Africa2
- Notes on some labyrinthodonts in the Transvaal Museum2
- The Rhinesuchidae and early history of the Stereospondyli (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) at the end of the Palaeozoic1
- New tempospondyl amphibians from the basal Triassic of the Obshchii Syrt Highland, Eastern Europe1
- The South African stereospondyl Lydekkerina huxleyi (Tetrapoda, Temnospondyli) in the Lower Triassic of Australia1
- A relict rhinesuchid (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) from the Lower Triassic of South Africa1
- Permian and Triassic temnospondyls from Russia1
- A new lydekkerinid (Amphibia, Temnospondyli) from the lower Triassic of South Africa: implications for evolution of the early capitosauroid cranial pattern1
Each of the 26 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Lydekkerinidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- DiBgd at English Wikipedia
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lydekkerinidae 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 itSuperstes through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Watson 1919