Tanytrachelos

Tanytrachelos is an extinct genus of tanystropheid archosauromorph reptile from the Late Triassic of the eastern United States. It contains a single species, Tanytrachelos ahynis, which is known from several hundred fossil specimens preserved in the Solite Quarry in Cascade, Virginia. Abundant fossils of Tanytrachelos are found in a series of lakebed sediments that were deposited over the course of about 350 thousand years in a lake which existed approximately 230 million years ago. Some fossils are very well-preserved and include the remains of soft tissues. Tanytrachelos is the most likely trackmaker of the ichnogenus Gwyneddichnium.

Tanytrachelos

Neil Pezzoni · CC BY 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
TanystropheidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 22 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 227.3 Mya and 205.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 9 of 9 occurrencesLate Triassic228–227 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences227–226 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences226–226 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences226–225 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences225–224 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences224–223 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences223–223 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences223–222 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences222–221 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences221–220 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences220–220 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences220–219 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences219–218 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences218–217 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences217–217 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences217–216 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences216–215 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences215–214 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences214–213 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences213–213 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences213–212 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences212–211 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences211–210 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences210–210 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences210–209 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences209–208 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences208–207 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences207–207 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences207–206 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences206–205 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences227.8 Mya205.2 Mya

9 occurrences of Tanytrachelos on record, most of them in the Late 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

9 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

4 formations

Lockatong — 40.77°N, 74.02°WLockatong — 40.42°N, 75.06°WChinle — 34.44°N, 109.46°WCow Branch — 36.54°N, 79.67°WStockton — 40.86°N, 73.96°W

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The named rock units Tanytrachelos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Tanytrachelos and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Tanytrachelos and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

126 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Tanytrachelos, 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 9 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 Tanytrachelos

Credit
Neil Pezzoni
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tanytrachelos 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 itTanystropheidae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Olsen 1979