Protenodontosaurus

Say it: pro-TEN-oh-don-toh-SORE-us

Name means: “first tooth lizard”1

Ate: MeatOther sea reptilesLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Protenodontosaurus was a marine reptile that lived in the Late Triassic period. It had a flat body and a strong shell, and it used its teeth to crush shellfish.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

237 to 234 million years ago2

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Dogna area, Italy2

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Protenodontosaurus is a type of placodont, a group of marine reptiles that lived during the Triassic period.1

Its name means 'first tooth lizard' because it had special teeth for crushing hard shells.1

The only known species is Protenodontosaurus italicus, found in Italy.2

It lived about 237 to 227 million years ago, during the Carnian age of the Late Triassic.1

Scientists think it was a slow swimmer that floated near the surface, feeding on plankton.2

AI-made picture of Protenodontosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Protenodontosaurus 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: Protenodontosaurus
Named by: Pinna 19902
Group: Other sea reptiles
Family / clade: Placochelyida2
Classification: Placodontia > Sauropterygia2
Age of the rocks: 237 to 234 million years (Carnian)2
Rock formations: Rio del Lago2
Countries: Italy2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Protenodontosaurus was named by Giovanni Pinna in 1990 based on a skull found in the Dogna area of Italy.2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure about the exact size of Protenodontosaurus because only a skull has been found.2

Where the facts come from

Protenodontosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Protenodontosaurus 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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