Plagiosuchus

Plagiosuchus is an extinct genus of plagiosaurid temnospondyl. It is known from several collections from the Middle Triassic of Germany.

Plagiosuchus

Ghedoghedo · 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
Sits inside
PlagiosuchinaePBDB
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 15 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 241.464 Mya and 227.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 7 of 8 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 1 of 8 occurrencesLate Triassic241–241 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 1 occurrence239–238 Mya — about 1 occurrence238–238 Mya — about 1 occurrence238–237 Mya — about 1 occurrence237–237 Mya — about 1 occurrence237–236 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences234–234 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences242 Mya226.8 Mya

8 occurrences of Plagiosuchus on record, most of them in the Middle 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

8 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

1 formation

  • Erfurt Formation · Keuper GroupBaden-Württemberg, Thuringia · DE · 239.48–237 Mya7
Erfurt — 49.00°N, 9.77°EErfurt — 49.08°N, 9.89°EErfurt — 49.18°N, 9.78°EErfurt — 50.83°N, 10.93°EErfurt — 49.21°N, 9.68°EErfurt — 50.38°N, 10.65°E

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The named rock units Plagiosuchus 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.

Plagiosuchus and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Plagiosuchus and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Plagiosuchus, 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

Each of the 8 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 Plagiosuchus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
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 itPlagiosuchinae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Huene 1922