Dino card No. 1111 of 2,027

Macroplacus

Say it: MAK-ro-PLAK-us

Name means: “large plate”1

Ate: FishSea reptilesLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Macroplacus was a slow-swimming reptile that looked a bit like a turtle. It used its strong jaws and big round teeth to crunch open shellfish for dinner.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

206 to 201 million years ago3

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Hinterstein near Hindelang im Allgäu, Germany3 1

Food

Fish1

Length

1 m1

Weight

8 kg2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 2 house cats

as long as 2 house cats nose to tailas long as 6 bananas end to endas heavy as 67 bananas

How big was Macroplacus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Macroplacus lived about 205 to 201 million years ago, during the Late Triassic period.3 1

Its body was flat and heavily armored, much like a turtle's shell.1

Macroplacus had a very robust skull that was wide at the back, with a narrow snout in front.1

It was an amphibious reptile, spending time in shallow coastal waters but not fully adapted to life in the sea.1

Scientists are not sure whether Macroplacus belongs to the Cyamodontidae family or the Placochelyidae family.1

The only known species of Macroplacus is called Macroplacus raeticus.1

AI-made picture of Macroplacus — An AI-made picture of how Macroplacus 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.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Macroplacus
Named by: Schubert and Klempnauer 19753
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Placochelyida3
Classification: Placodontia > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 206 to 201 million years (Rhaetian)3
Rock formations: Koessen3
Countries: Germany3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Macroplacus was named by Schubert and Klempnauer in 1975, based on fossils found in Germany.3 1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Macroplacus belongs to the Cyamodontidae family or the Placochelyidae family.1

Where the facts come from

Macroplacus (en.wikipedia.org)
Macroplacus (iiab.live)
Macroplacus 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.

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