Amelacanthus

Amelacanthus is an extinct genus of elasmobranchian cartilaginous fish from the Paleozoic era. It is known from fin spines and currently contains four described species. It is known from the Permian and Carboniferous of North America, Europe, and Africa. It is also known from the Famennian of Russia. Specimens of Amelacanthus have additionally been found in Permian (Wordian) and Triassic (Induan) sediments of Oman. This makes Amelacanthus one of the only known Ctenacanths to have survived the Permian-Trassic extinction event, going extinct only in the Early Triassic.

No picture of Amelacanthus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Amelacanthus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ElasmobranchiiPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 74 million years on record.

The record covers at least 323.4 Mya to 248.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 247 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 8 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 2 of 8 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 5 of 8 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 1 of 8 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 8 occurrences361–357 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences357–353 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences353–349 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences349–346 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences346–342 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences342–338 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences338–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330–326 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences326–322 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences318–315 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences315–311 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences311–307 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences299–295 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences295–291 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences268–264 Mya — about 4 occurrences249–245 Mya — about 1 occurrence323.4 Mya248.6 Mya361 Mya245 Mya

8 occurrences of Amelacanthus on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

8 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Khuff — 21.01°N, 57.67°ENaco — 34.33°N, 111.12°WGrenola — 39.00°N, 96.60°W

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The named rock units Amelacanthus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Amelacanthus and its relatives

Permian

Where Amelacanthus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

99 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Amelacanthus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 8 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Amelacanthus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Amelacanthus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Amelacanthus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itElasmobranchii through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Maisey 1982