Pareiasaurus serridens
Pareiasaurus is an extinct genus of pareiasauromorph reptile from the Permian period. It was a typical member of its family, the pareiasaurids, which take their name from this genus.

Paul venter · 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
- PareiasaurusPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Pareiasaurus
- 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 264.28 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
15 occurrences of Pareiasaurus serridens 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
15 occurrences- Permian100%
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
4 formations
- Balfour Formation · Beaufort Group3
- Teekloof Formation · Beaufort Group1
- Middleton/Balfour Formation · Beaufort Group1
- Madumabisa Mudstone Formation1
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The named rock units Pareiasaurus serridens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pareiasaurus serridens and its relatives
PermianWhere Pareiasaurus serridens and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
38 taxa- Diictodon feliceps3 sites
- Oudenodon bainii2 sites
- Pelanomodon moschops2 sites
- Theriognathus microps2 sites
- Aelurognathus tigriceps1 site
- Aelurosaurus1 site
- Aelurosaurus brevirostris1 site
- Aelurosaurus polyodon1 site
- Arctognathus curvimola1 site
- Aulacephalodon bainii1 site
- Basilodon woodwardi1 site
- Bradysaurus seeleyi1 site
- Cistecephalus microrhinus1 site
- Cyonosaurus rubidgei1 site
- Daptocephalus leoniceps1 site
- Dicynodontia1 site
- Diictodon1 site
- Dinanomodon gilli1 site
- Emyduranus gracilis1 site
- Eosimops newtoni1 site
- Gorgonopsia1 site
- Ictidosuchops intermedius1 site
- Milleretta rubidgei1 site
- Millerettidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Pareiasaurus serridens, 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
4 references- The distribution of the Karroo vertebrate fauna11
- On some new genera and species of fossil reptiles from the Karroo Beds of Graaff-Reinet2
- The fauna of the Tapinocephalus Zone (Beaufort Beds of the Karoo)1
- A report on some Karroo reptiles from the Luangwa Valley, Northern Rhodesia1
Each of the 15 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 Pareiasaurus serridens
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Paul venter
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itPareiasaurus through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen