Dino card No. 0467 of 2,027

Cyamodus

Say it: SIE-ah-MO-dus

Name means: “bean-shaped tooth”1

Ate: MeatSea reptilesMiddle Triassic to Late TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Cyamodus was a turtle-like marine reptile that lived in the Triassic seas. It had a hard shell made of bony plates and used its blunt teeth to crush shellfish. It was not a dinosaur, but a type of placodont.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

247 to 227 million years ago3

Middle Triassic to Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary, and China2 1

Food

Meat1

Length

0.9 to 1.5 m1

most species 1.3 to 1.5 m; smallest species C. rostratus about 0.9 m

Weight

5 kg to 25 kg1

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 6 house cats

as long as 3 house cats nose to tailas long as 8 bananas end to endas heavy as 5 watermelons

How big was Cyamodus compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Cyamodus had a two-part shell: a big plate covered its body from neck to hips, and a smaller plate covered its hips and tail base.1

Its shell was made of many hexagonal or circular bony plates that made it heavy, helping it sink and stay underwater to find food.1

Fossils of two baby Cyamodus were found inside the stomach of a Lariosaurus, a large marine reptile that ate them.1

Cyamodus lived about 245 to 235 million years ago, during the Middle and Late Triassic.1

Its skull was heart-shaped and broad, and its limbs were short so it probably only came on land to rest.1

The first Cyamodus fossils were found in Germany and were originally thought to be from fish.1

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

you asked

Most asked questions about Cyamodus

?How big was Cyamodus?

Most Cyamodus species were about 1.3 to 1.5 metres (4.3 to 4.9 feet) long and weighed 20 to 25 kilograms (44 to 55 pounds). The smallest species, C. rostratus, was about 0.9 metres (3.0 feet) long and weighed 5 kilograms (11 pounds).1

?What did Cyamodus eat?

Cyamodus ate shellfish, which it crushed with its blunt teeth. It lived near the sea floor, vacuuming up various shellfish and crushing them between its teeth.1

?Was Cyamodus a dinosaur?

No, Cyamodus was not a dinosaur. It was a type of placodont, a marine reptile related to turtles, and it lived during the Triassic period.1

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Myth buster

Myth: Cyamodus was an ancient turtle.

Truth: It was not a turtle, but a placodont, a different group of marine reptiles that lived at the same time.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Cyamodus
Named by: von Meyer 18633
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Cyamodontidae3
Classification: Placodontia > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 247 to 227 million years ()3
Rock formations: Besano, Meissner, Templomhegy Dolomite3
Countries: Germany, France, Slovenia, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary3
Fossil records: 18 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The genus Cyamodus was named by German scientist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer in 1863, based on fossils from Germany.1 2
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Cyamodus ate only shellfish or also grazed on algae.1

Where the facts come from

Cyamodus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Cyamodus 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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