Rhipaeosaurus

Rhipaeosaurus is an extinct genus of nycteroleterid parareptile known from an articulated skeleton from the mid Middle Permian of European Russia. It contained a single species, Rhipaeosaurus tricuspidens. A bayesian analysis suggests that it is more closely related to pareiasaurs than to the other nycteroleterids, due to skull and tooth features. For this reason, "Nycteroleteridae" may be a grade rather than a clade, unless redefined to exclude Rhipaeosaurus.

Rhipaeosaurus

Dmitry Bogdanov · 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
NycteroleteridaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 7.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 266.9 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 3 of 3 occurrencesPermian267–267 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences267–267 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences267–266 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences266–266 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences266–266 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences266–266 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences266–265 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences265–265 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences265–265 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences265–264 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences267.4 Mya259.4 Mya

3 occurrences of Rhipaeosaurus 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

3 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

Belebei — 54.11°N, 54.13°EKotelnich — 57.87°N, 48.65°E

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The named rock units Rhipaeosaurus 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.

Rhipaeosaurus and its relatives

Permian

Where Rhipaeosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

25 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Rhipaeosaurus, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 Rhipaeosaurus

Credit
Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Rhipaeosaurus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itNycteroleteridae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Efremov 1940