Dino card No. 0305 of 2,027

Brevicaudosaurus

Say it: BREV-ih-kow-doh-SORE-us

Name means: “short-tailed lizard”1

Ate: MeatSea reptilesMiddle Triassic to Late TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Brevicaudosaurus was a small marine reptile that lived in the sea during the Triassic Period. It had a very short, flat tail and a broad, flat body, so it probably swam slowly and hunted near the seafloor.1

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

241 to 227 million years ago3

Middle Triassic to Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Fuyuan, Yunnan Province, China1 3

Food

Meat1 2

Length

0.588 m1

holotype adult specimen

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 3 bananas end to end

How big was Brevicaudosaurus compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Brevicaudosaurus means 'short-tailed lizard' because its tail was unusually short and flattened compared to other marine reptiles like it.1

A baby Brevicaudosaurus was only about one-third the length of an adult, and its teeth were small and smooth instead of fang-like.1 2

Adult Brevicaudosaurus had fang-shaped teeth in the front of the upper jaw, which helped them grab big prey.1 2

Scientists think Brevicaudosaurus lived on the seafloor and ate animals that lived there, because its flat body and short tail made it a slow swimmer.1

The first Brevicaudosaurus fossil was described in 2020, and a baby skeleton was found later in 2025.1 2

Brevicaudosaurus lived about 240 million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, in the ocean that covered what is now southern China.1 3

AI-made picture of Brevicaudosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Brevicaudosaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

Ask Rex about Brevicaudosaurus

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Brevicaudosaurus
Named by: Shang et al. 20203
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Nothosauridae3
Classification: Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 241 to 227 million years (Ladinian / Carnian)3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Brevicaudosaurus was named in 2020 by scientists Shang, Wu, and Li based on a fossil found in Fuyuan, Yunnan Province, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly where Brevicaudosaurus fits on the family tree of marine reptiles. Some studies place it close to nothosaurs, while others put it outside that group.1

Where the facts come from

Brevicaudosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Open Research Online (oro.open.ac.uk)
Brevicaudosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex