Tethysaurinae

The Tethysaurinae are a subfamily of mosasaurs, a diverse group of Late Cretaceous marine squamates. Members of the subfamily are informally and collectively known as "tethysaurines" and have been recovered from North America and Africa. Only two tethysaurine genera are known, Pannoniasaurus and Tethysaurus. The genera Yaguarasaurus and Russellosaurus were previously considered tethysaurines until they were grouped with Romeosaurus in the new subfamily Yaguarasaurinae. A possible member of this clade (subfamily) is a mosasaur specimen known from a maxilla fragment, found in 1960 in the Czech Republic, in Dolní Újezd near Litomyšl.

Tethysaurinae

Seth.sorensen · 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
MosasauroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Mosasauroidea

Time the record covers

At least 6.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 9 of 9 occurrencesLate Cretaceous94–94 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences93–92 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences92–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences91–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences91–90 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences88–87 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences87–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89.8 Mya83.6 Mya94.4 Mya71.7 Mya

9 occurrences of Tethysaurinae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

5 formations

Akrabou — 31.85°N, 4.93°WCsehbánya — 47.22°N, 17.60°EAjka Coal — 47.08°N, 17.57°EJizera — 49.80°N, 16.30°ESchönleiten — 47.67°N, 14.80°E

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The named rock units Tethysaurinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tethysaurinae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

97 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Tethysaurinae, 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

8 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. 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 Tethysaurinae

Credit
Seth.sorensen
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tethysaurinae 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 itMosasauroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Makádi et al. 2012