Dino card No. 1409 of 2,015

Phalarodon

Say it: FAL-ah-ro-don

Name means: “boss tooth, from Greek words for a cheek-plate boss and tooth”1

Ate: MeatIchthyosaursEarly Triassic to Middle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Phalarodon was a fast-swimming marine reptile that lived in the Triassic seas, not a dinosaur. It had a long body and a skull full of strong teeth for catching fish and squid.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

251 to 237 million years ago2

Early Triassic to Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Nevada, USA; Guizhou Province, China; Svalbard, Norway; British Columbia, Canada; Germany; Switzerland1 2

Food

Meat2 1

Length

1 to 5 m1

scientists disagree; some think the largest species reached about 4.5 to 5 metres, others say it was small like Mixosaurus cornalianus at about 1 metre

Artist's life restoration of Phalarodon — How Phalarodon may have looked, by DiBgd. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Phalarodon's name means 'boss tooth' because its teeth look like the boss on a helmet cheek-plate.1

It lived during the Middle Triassic, about 247 to 242 million years ago, when the supercontinent Pangaea was still together.1

Phalarodon could swim across the Tethys Ocean, as shown by fossils found in both Germany and China, which were on opposite sides of that ancient sea.1

Its skull had a high ridge on top called a sagittal crest, which helped anchor strong jaw muscles for a powerful bite.1

Some scientists think Phalarodon atavus had a skull up to 80 centimetres (2.6 feet) long, making it a large mixosaurid, but others say the fossils are too broken to be sure.1

Phalarodon shared its home with other marine reptiles like Cymbospondylus and Omphalosaurus in the Fossil Hill Member of Nevada.1

The teeth of Phalarodon were blunt and slightly flattened, perfect for crushing hard-shelled prey like ammonites.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Phalarodon
Named by: Merriam 19102
Group: Ichthyosaurs
Family / clade: Mixosauridae2
Classification: Ichthyosauria > Ichthyosauromorpha2
Age of the rocks: 251 to 237 million years ()2
Rock formations: Sulphur Mountain, Guanling, Jena2
Countries: Canada, Germany, USA, China, Svalbard2
Fossil records: 14 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Phalarodon was named by John Campbell Merriam in 1910, based on a skull and jaw fragments found in the West Humboldt Range of Nevada, USA.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Phalarodon was a small mixosaurid about 1 metre long or a larger one reaching up to 5 metres, because many fossils are just skull pieces.1

Where the facts come from

Phalarodon (en.wikipedia.org)
Phalarodon 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.