Platecarpus planifrons

Platecarpus planifrons (Cope, 1874), a relative of Platecarpus planifrons — not Platecarpus planifrons itself

Not Platecarpus planifrons. This is Platecarpus planifrons (Cope, 1874), a relative — both are Mosasauridae.

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
PlatecarpusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Mosasauridae
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 89.8 Mya and 83.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 5 of 5 occurrencesLate Cretaceous90–90 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90.3 Mya83.1 Mya

5 occurrences of Platecarpus planifrons on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

5 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

2 formations

Niobrara — 38.00°N, 100.25°WNiobrara — 38.83°N, 100.12°WNiobrara — 38.75°N, 100.21°WBoquillas — 29.32°N, 103.62°W

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The named rock units Platecarpus planifrons has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Platecarpus planifrons and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Platecarpus planifrons and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

4 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Platecarpus planifrons, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 5 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 Platecarpus planifrons (Cope, 1874)

Source
GBIF
Credit
Yale Peabody Museum
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPlatecarpus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1874)