Phrynosoma

Phrynosoma, whose members are known as the horned lizards, horny toads, or horntoads, is a genus of North American lizards and the type genus of the family Phrynosomatidae. Their common names refer directly to their horns or to their flattened, rounded bodies, and blunt snouts.

Phrynosoma

(c) Juan Cruzado Cortés, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · 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
Also called
horned lizardPBDB
Sits inside
IguaninaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Iguanidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Iguanidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 4 of 33 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 33 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 25 of 33 occurrencesPleistocene19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.5–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.0–6.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.3–5.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.7–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.4–3.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.8–3.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.2–2.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.5–1.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.9–1.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.3–633 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences633 ka–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences16.3 Mya129 ka19 Mya0 Mya

33 occurrences of Phrynosoma on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

33 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

8 formations

"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°WRexroad — 37.20°N, 100.30°WArikaree — 43.20°N, 108.20°WPalm Springs — 32.97°N, 116.13°WValentine — 42.80°N, 100.80°WLong Pine — 42.38°N, 98.23°WAlamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WCrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°W

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The named rock units Phrynosoma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Phrynosoma and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Phrynosoma and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

533 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Phrynosoma, 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

20 references

Each of the 33 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. 8 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 Phrynosoma

Credit
(c) Juan Cruzado Cortés, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Phrynosoma 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 itIguaninae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wiegmann 1828