Dino card No. 0470 of 2,027

Cymbospondylus

Say it: SIM-bo-SPON-dil-us

Name means: “cupped vertebrae”1

Ate: MeatIchthyosaursEarly Triassic to Middle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Cymbospondylus was a huge, ancient marine reptile that swam in the seas long before the first dinosaurs. It looked like a giant lizard with flippers and a long snout, and some species were as long as a school bus!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 ago3

Early Triassic to Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Nevada and Idaho, USA; also Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Norway (Svalbard)1 3 2

Food

Meat1 3

Length

4 to 17 m1

smallest species about 4 to 5 m, largest species C. youngorum over 17 m

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 4 cars parked in a rowas long as 94 bananas end to end

How big was Cymbospondylus compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Cymbospondylus is one of the oldest and largest ichthyosaurs, living about 251 to 242 million years ago during the Triassic Period.1

The biggest species, Cymbospondylus youngorum, was over 17 metres (56 feet) long, making it one of the largest animals of its time.1

Unlike later dolphin-shaped ichthyosaurs, Cymbospondylus had a long, slender body and a less pronounced tail.1

A Swiss species, Cymbospondylus buchseri, was found with the hooks of squid-like animals in its stomach, showing it ate soft-bodied cephalopods.1

Cymbospondylus lived alongside other marine reptiles like Thalattoarchon and Augustasaurus in the seas of Nevada.1

Its teeth were conical and pointed with ridges, perfect for grabbing slippery fish and squid.1

Cymbospondylus reached huge sizes very quickly after the Permian-Triassic extinction, probably because there was lots of food available.1

AI-made picture of Cymbospondylus — An AI-made picture of how Cymbospondylus 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: Cymbospondylus
Named by: Leidy 18683
Group: Ichthyosaurs
Family / clade: Cymbospondylidae3
Classification: Ichthyosauria > Ichthyosauromorpha3
Age of the rocks: 251 to 237 million years ()3
Rock formations: Prida, Botneheia, Favret3
Countries: USA, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Germany3
Fossil records: 17 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The first fossils of Cymbospondylus were vertebrae found in Nevada, USA, and were named by the scientist Joseph Leidy in 1868.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether larger species of Cymbospondylus hunted other marine reptiles or only ate fish and squid.1

Where the facts come from

Cymbospondylus (en.wikipedia.org)
Cymbospondylus (Ichthyopterygia) from the Early Triassic of Svalbard and the early evolution of large body size in ichthyosaurs | PalZ | Springer Nature Link (link.springer.com)
Cymbospondylus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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