Nycteroleteridae

Nycteroleteridae is a family of procolophonian parareptilians from the Middle to Late Permian of Russia and North America. They are sometimes classified as a sister group to pareiasaurids. The group includes the genera Macroleter, Bashkyroleter, "Bashkyroleter" mesensis, Nycteroleter, Emeroleter, and probably Rhipaeosaurus. They were carnivorous, and occasionally ate insects. The group was most common in European Russia, with only a few fossils in North America. One fossil has also been found in Africa, but this is the only one from Gondwana.

Nycteroleteridae

Johannes Müller, Linda A. Tsuji · CC BY 2.5 · 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
NyctiphruretiaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 2.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 266.9 Mya to 264.28 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 274.4 Mya to 256.8 Mya.

Permian — about 20 of 20 occurrencesPermian275–274 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences274–274 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences274–273 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences273–272 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences272–272 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences272–271 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences271–271 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences271–270 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences270–269 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences269–269 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences269–268 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences268–267 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences267–267 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences267–266 Mya — about 2 occurrences266–266 Mya — about 2 occurrences266–265 Mya — about 2 occurrences265–264 Mya — about 2 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences259–258 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences258–257 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences257–256 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences266.9 Mya264.28 Mya274.9 Mya256.3 Mya

20 occurrences of Nycteroleteridae on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

20 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

5 formations

Belebei — 52.58°N, 54.42°EBelebei — 54.11°N, 54.13°EBelebei — 52.52°N, 54.70°EBelebei — 52.65°N, 54.64°EUrpalov — 58.15°N, 48.35°EChickasha — 36.02°N, 98.37°WKrasnoshchel' — 64.92°N, 45.67°EKotelnich — 57.87°N, 48.65°E

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The named rock units Nycteroleteridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Nycteroleteridae and its relatives

Permian

Where Nycteroleteridae and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

81 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Nycteroleteridae, 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

9 references

Each of the 20 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 Nycteroleteridae

Credit
Johannes Müller, Linda A. Tsuji
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Nycteroleteridae 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 itNyctiphruretia through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Romer 1956