Rubidgeinae
Rubidgeinae is an extinct subfamily of gorgonopsid therapsids known only from Africa. They were among the largest gorgonopsians, and their fossils are common in the Cistecephalus and Daptocephalus assemblage zones of the Karoo Basin. They lived during the Late Permian, and became extinct at the near the end of the Permian following a turnover event.

Uncredited · 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
- GorgonopidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Gorgonopsia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 13 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 264.28 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
79 occurrences of Rubidgeinae 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
79 occurrences- Permian100%
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
6 formations
- Usili Formation · Songea Group12
- Balfour Formation · Beaufort Group11
- Madumabisa Mudstone Formation8
- Middleton/Balfour Formation · Beaufort Group3
- Chiweta Beds Formation1
- Teekloof Formation · Beaufort Group1
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The named rock units Rubidgeinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 43 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Rubidgeinae and its relatives
PermianWhere Rubidgeinae and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
69 taxa- Aelurognathus tigriceps3 sites
- Aulacephalodon bainii2 sites
- Cistecephalus microrhinus2 sites
- Daptocephalus leoniceps2 sites
- Diictodon feliceps2 sites
- Dinogorgon rubidgei2 sites
- Gorgonopsia2 sites
- Katumbia parringtoni2 sites
- Leogorgon klimovensis2 sites
- Oudenodon bainii2 sites
- Rhachiocephalus magnus2 sites
- Rubidgea atrox2 sites
- Sycosaurus2 sites
- Theriognathus microps2 sites
- Acropholis stensioei1 site
- Aelurognathus1 site
- Aloposaurus1 site
- Arctognathus nasuta1 site
- Basilodon woodwardi1 site
- Boreolepis tataricus1 site
- Chroniosuchus paradoxus1 site
- Chthonosaurus velocidens1 site
- Daptocephalus huenei1 site
- Dicynodon angielczyki1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Rubidgeinae, 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
15 references- Systematics of the Rubidgeinae (Therapsida: Gorgonopsia)37
- Theriodontia I: Phthinosuchia, Biarmosuchia, Eotitanosuchia, Gorgonopsia13
- A Contribution to our Knowledge of the Vertebrates of the Karroo Beds of South Africa7
- The distribution of the Karroo vertebrate fauna4
- A re-examination of the Karroo succession and fossil localities of part of the Upper Luangwa Valley4
- Die Theriodontier des ostafrikanischen Ruhuhu-Gebietes in der Tuebinger Sammlung4
- The sternum and interclavicle of Aelurognathus tigriceps (Broom & Haughton, 1913) (Therapsida: Gorgonopsia), with comments on sternal evolution in therapsids2
- On the Revision of the Permian Ray-Finned Fishes of European Russia. Part 11
- Evidence of a therapsid scavenger in the Late Permian Karoo Basin, South Africa1
- Eotherapsids from the East European Placket (Late Permian)1
- The Rubidge Collection of fossil Karroo vertebrates1
- Studies on new specimens of the Gorgonopsia1
Each of the 79 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. 3 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 content1
Picture of Rubidgeinae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Rubidgeinae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Rubidgeinae”
- 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 itGorgonopidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Broom 1938