Robertia

Robertia is an extinct genus of small herbivorous dicynodonts from the Middle to Late Permian of South Africa, between 260 and 265 million years ago. It is a monospecific genus, consisting of the type-species R. broomiana, which was classified by Lieuwe Dirk Boonstra in 1948 and named in honor of Robert Broom for his study of South African mammal-like reptiles.

Robertia

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
PylaecephalidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Dicynodontia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 254.14 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 12 of 12 occurrencesPermian264–264 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences264–264 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences264–263 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences263–263 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences263–262 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences262–262 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences262–261 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences261–261 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences261–260 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences259–258 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences258–257 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences257–256 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences256–256 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences256–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences255–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences254–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences264.8 Mya253.6 Mya

12 occurrences of Robertia 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

12 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

Abrahamskraal — 32.91°S, 22.03°EKoonap — 32.35°S, 22.59°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Robertia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Robertia and its relatives

Permian

Where Robertia and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

19 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Robertia, 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 12 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 Robertia

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

No 3D scan of Robertia 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 itPylaecephalidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Boonstra 1948