Plioplatecarpus

Plioplatecarpus is a genus of mosasaur lizard. Like all mosasaurs, it lived in the late Cretaceous period, about 82-68 million years ago.

Plioplatecarpus

User:Ballista · 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
PlioplatecarpiniPBDB
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 least 21 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 61.66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 28 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 28 of 28 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 28 occurrencesPaleocene101–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–97 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences95–93 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 1 occurrence82–81 Mya — about 1 occurrence81–80 Mya — about 1 occurrence80–78 Mya — about 1 occurrence78–77 Mya — about 1 occurrence77–76 Mya — about 1 occurrence76–74 Mya — about 1 occurrence74–73 Mya — about 1 occurrence73–72 Mya — about 2 occurrences72–70 Mya — about 3 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 3 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 3 occurrences68–66 Mya — about 3 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences64–62 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences62–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences93.9 Mya72.2 Mya101.3 Mya60.9 Mya

28 occurrences of Plioplatecarpus 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

28 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

15 formations

Pierre Shale — 44.47°N, 100.41°WPierre Shale — 47.36°N, 97.99°WPierre Shale — 39.91°N, 101.94°WFox Hills — 46.38°N, 100.85°WFox Hills — 46.10°N, 100.43°WFox Hills — 46.38°N, 99.59°WBearpaw Shale — 50.67°N, 107.43°WBearpaw Shale — 50.50°N, 107.83°WSt. Mary River — 49.91°N, 112.99°WDanish White Chalk — 55.30°N, 12.45°ELópez de Bertodano — 64.28°S, 56.81°WHornerstown — 39.76°N, 75.13°WMaastricht — 50.82°N, 5.68°ECraie de Ciply — 50.42°N, 3.93°EDukamaje — 15.37°N, 5.83°EBearpaw Shale — 47.78°N, 106.68°WDemopolis Chalk — 32.67°N, 88.11°WJagüel — 39.86°S, 66.62°WSnow Hill Island — 63.89°S, 57.60°WDemopolis — 34.59°N, 88.63°W

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The named rock units Plioplatecarpus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Plioplatecarpus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Plioplatecarpus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

218 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Plioplatecarpus, 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

23 references

Each of the 28 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. 11 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 content2

Picture of Plioplatecarpus

Credit
User:Ballista
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Plioplatecarpus houzeaui · RBINS-Scientific Heritage:R:0035

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 itPlioplatecarpini through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dollo 1882