Shinisauridae

The Chinese crocodile lizard is a semiaquatic anguimorph lizard found only in cool forests in southeastern China and northeastern Vietnam. The Chinese crocodile lizard spends much of its time in shallow water or in overhanging branches and vegetation, where it hunts its prey of insects, snails, tadpoles, and worms. Individuals in captivity may be fed baby mice. A rare and little-studied lizard, it is listed in CITES Appendix II, which regulates international trade of specimens. This is the only species in the monotypic genus Shinisaurus. It is the only living member of Shinisauria, a clade of lizards whose fossil record extends back to the Early Cretaceous, over 120 million years ago.

Shinisauridae

Greg Hume · CC BY-SA 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
PlatynotaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 51.1 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 3 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesEocene84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.2 Mya56 Mya84.3 Mya50.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Shinisauridae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

1 formation

Green River — 41.78°N, 110.73°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Shinisauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Shinisauridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

74 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Shinisauridae, 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Shinisauridae

Credit
Greg Hume
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Shinisauridae 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 itPlatynota through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ahl 1930)