Simoedosauridae

Neochoristodera is a lineage of specialised crocodile-like fully aquatic choristodere reptiles. Noted for their long jaws and large size, these animals were predominant across the Northern Hemisphere, occurring in freshwater and coastal environments across the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic.

Simoedosauridae

D. Gordon E. Robertson · 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
NeochoristoderaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 57 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 12 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPaleocene — about 8 of 12 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 3 of 12 occurrencesEocene123–120 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences120–118 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118–115 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences115–113 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–64 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences64–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences62–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–57 Mya — about 4 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences113.2 Mya56 Mya123 Mya47 Mya

12 occurrences of Simoedosauridae on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

5 formations

Fort Union — 45.20°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.89°N, 108.98°WFort Union — 44.98°N, 109.02°WSlope — 46.77°N, 101.29°WSlope — 46.70°N, 101.80°WTienen — 50.70°N, 4.98°ETienen — 50.33°N, 4.28°ERavenscrag — 49.50°N, 109.20°WJiufotang — 41.57°N, 120.45°E

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The named rock units Simoedosauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Simoedosauridae and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Simoedosauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

146 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Simoedosauridae, 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

6 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. 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 Simoedosauridae

Credit
D. Gordon E. Robertson
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Simoedosauridae 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 itNeochoristodera through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lemone 1884