Tanystropheus conspicuus

Hermann von Meyer (1801–1869) · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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
- TanystropheusPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Tanystropheus
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Tanystropheus
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 10 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 247 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Tanystropheus conspicuus on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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
2 occurrences- Middle Triassic100%
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
- Erfurt Formation · Keuper Group1
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The named rock units Tanystropheus conspicuus 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.
Tanystropheus conspicuus and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Tanystropheus conspicuus and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- Nothosaurus2 sites
- Acrodus1 site
- Actinistia1 site
- Batrachotomus kupferzellensis1 site
- Blezingeria ichthyospondylus1 site
- Bystrowiella schumanni1 site
- Callistomordax kugleri1 site
- Cyamodus1 site
- Gerrothorax1 site
- Gerrothorax pulcherrimus1 site
- Gomphodontidae1 site
- Gyrolepis1 site
- Hybodus1 site
- Jaxtasuchus salomoni1 site
- Lepidosauria1 site
- Mastodonsaurus1 site
- Mastodonsaurus giganteus1 site
- Neusticosaurus pusillus1 site
- Nothosaurus giganteus1 site
- Owenettidae1 site
- Plagiosternum granulosum1 site
- Plagiosuchus pustuliferus1 site
- Ptychoceratodus serratus1 site
- Serrolepis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Tanystropheus conspicuus, 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
2 references- Comparative osteology of Mastodonsaurus giganteus (Jaeger, 1828) from the Middle Triassic (Lettenkeuper: Longobardian) of Germany (Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Thüringen)1
- Die Schwäbischen Trias-Saurier nach dem Material der Kgl. Naturalien-Sammlung in Stuttgart zusammengestellt [Swabian Triassic dinosaurs based on the material in the Royal Natural History Collection compiled in Stuttgart]1
Each of the 2 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 Tanystropheus conspicuus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Hermann von Meyer (1801–1869)
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tanystropheus conspicuus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTanystropheus through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Meyer 1855