Parotosuchus

Parotosuchus is an extinct genus of capitosaurian temnospondyls within the family Mastodonsauridae. Fossils are known from the Early Triassic of Europe, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. It was about 2 metres (6.6 ft) long and likely lived in aquatic environments such as lakes and rivers. Parotosuchus was covered in a scaly skin, unlike the smooth skin of modern-day amphibians, and probably moved with an eel-like motion in the water.

Parotosuchus

FunkMonk · 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
CapitosauroideaPBDB
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 1.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 248.6 Mya to 247 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 250.8 Mya to 241.464 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 25 of 26 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 26 occurrencesMiddle Triassic251–251 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–250 Mya — about 1 occurrence250–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 1 occurrence249–249 Mya — about 2 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 4 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 4 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 4 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 4 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 2 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences248.6 Mya247 Mya251.3 Mya241 Mya

26 occurrences of Parotosuchus 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 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

10 formations

Petropavlovskaya — 52.43°N, 55.76°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.42°N, 55.72°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.40°N, 55.53°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.15°N, 55.89°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.15°N, 55.84°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.03°N, 55.72°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.03°N, 55.65°EPetropavlovskaya — 51.28°N, 55.89°EPetropavlovskaya — 51.90°N, 53.63°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.31°N, 53.12°EPetropavlovskaya — 52.34°N, 51.61°EPetropavlovka — 52.03°N, 55.64°EPetropavlovka — 50.81°N, 55.24°EPetropavlovka — 51.39°N, 55.28°EPetropavlovka — 51.75°N, 55.08°EPetropavlovka — 51.45°N, 55.20°EWióry — 50.96°N, 21.20°EVolpriehausen — 54.18°N, 7.88°EMoenkopi — 37.88°N, 110.37°WFremouw — 84.28°S, 164.35°ELipovskaya — 49.26°N, 43.67°ESolling — 51.80°N, 11.71°EYarenskian — 62.06°N, 49.56°ETauchik — 44.37°N, 51.40°E

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The named rock units Parotosuchus 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.

Parotosuchus and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Parotosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

84 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Parotosuchus, 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

10 references

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. 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 Parotosuchus

Credit
FunkMonk
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Parotosuchus 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 itCapitosauroidea through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ochev and Shishkin 1968