Pristerognathus

Pristerognathus is an extinct genus of therocephalian, known from the late Middle Permian (Capitanian) of South Africa. It lends its name to the now defunct Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group of South African geological strata. Pristerognathus was a medium-sized therocephalian with a 25 cm (9.8 in) skull and a total length up to 1.5 m.

Pristerognathus

Christian F. Kammerer · CC BY 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
PristerognathinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Therocephalia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 4.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 259.857 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 9 of 9 occurrencesPermian264–264 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264.8 Mya259.4 Mya

9 occurrences of Pristerognathus 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

9 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

Abrahamskraal — 32.42°S, 22.37°EAbrahamskraal — 32.91°S, 22.03°EAbrahamskraal — 32.86°S, 22.11°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pristerognathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pristerognathus and its relatives

Permian

Where Pristerognathus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

16 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Pristerognathus, 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

3 references

Each of the 9 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Pristerognathus

Credit
Christian F. Kammerer
Licence
CC BY 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 itPristerognathinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Seeley 1895