Cyamodus

Say it: SIE-ah-MO-dus

Name means: “bean-shaped tooth”1

Ate: MeatOther sea 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

Artist's life restoration of Cyamodus — How Cyamodus may have looked, by Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com). CC BY 3.0, 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

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

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: Other 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 hello@dinowiki.app and we will fix it.