Platyhystrix

Platyhystrix is an extinct temnospondyl amphibian with a distinctive sail along its back, similar to the unrelated synapsids, Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. It lived during the boundary between the latest Carboniferous and earliest Permian periods throughout what is now known as the Four Corners, Texas, and Kansas about 300 million years ago.

Platyhystrix

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 2.5 · 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
PlatyhistricinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Olsoniformes
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Olsoniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 8.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 298.9 Mya to 290.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 303.7 Mya to 283.3 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 16 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 14 of 16 occurrencesPermian304–303 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences303–303 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences303–302 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences302–301 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences301–301 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences301–300 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences300–299 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences299–298 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences298–298 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences298–297 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences297–296 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences296–296 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences296–295 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences295–294 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences294–294 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences294–293 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences293–292 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences292–291 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences291–291 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences291–290 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences290–289 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences289–289 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences289–288 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences288–287 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences287–286 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences286–286 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences286–285 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences285–284 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences284–284 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences284–283 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences298.9 Mya290.1 Mya304.2 Mya282.8 Mya

16 occurrences of Platyhystrix 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

16 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

9 formations

Cutler — 37.17°N, 109.85°WCutler — 38.01°N, 108.04°WCutler — 36.16°N, 106.65°WCutler — 36.12°N, 106.62°WCutler — 36.31°N, 106.35°WEl Cobre Canyon — 36.14°N, 106.62°WAbo — 35.77°N, 106.69°WAbo — 34.30°N, 106.54°WAbo/Cutler — 36.18°N, 106.67°WPetrolia — 33.64°N, 98.90°WBelle Plains — 33.74°N, 98.90°WBern Limestone — 39.82°N, 95.41°WSangre de Cristo — 34.64°N, 107.18°WLaborcita — 33.08°N, 106.08°W

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

Platyhystrix and its relatives

Permian

Where Platyhystrix and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

62 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Platyhystrix, 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

8 references

Each of the 16 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 Platyhystrix

Credit
Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
Licence
CC BY 2.5
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 itPlatyhistricinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Williston 1911