Aspidorhynchus

Aspidorhynchus is an extinct genus of predatory ray-finned fish from the Middle Jurassic to the earliest Cretaceous. Fossils have been found in Europe, Antarctica and the Caribbean.

Aspidorhynchus

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AspidorhynchidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Aspidorhynchidae
Life habit
nektonic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Aspidorhynchidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Aspidorhynchidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Aspidorhynchidae

Time the record covers

At least 64 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 93.9 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 4 of 17 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 8 of 17 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 17 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 17 occurrencesLate Cretaceous170–167 Mya — about 1 occurrence167–165 Mya — about 2 occurrences165–162 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences162–159 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–149 Mya — about 3 occurrences149–147 Mya — about 2 occurrences147–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–141 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences141–139 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences139–136 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences126–123 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences103–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–98 Mya — about 1 occurrence98–95 Mya — about 1 occurrence95–92 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences165.3 Mya100.5 Mya170 Mya92 Mya

17 occurrences of Aspidorhynchus on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

17 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

7 formations

Solnhofen — 48.94°N, 8.41°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ESolnhofen — 48.90°N, 11.18°EGrünsandstein — 48.93°N, 11.83°ECalcaires à Stipites — 44.07°N, 3.29°EGreat Oolite — 52.27°N, 0.88°WOxford Clay — 51.50°N, 2.06°WLiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°ELa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.03°N, 0.83°E

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The named rock units Aspidorhynchus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aspidorhynchus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Aspidorhynchus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

194 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Aspidorhynchus, 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

11 references

Each of the 17 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 content3

Picture of Aspidorhynchus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Synchrotron Imaging scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Aspidorhynchus sp. · l-rbjb:cncoll

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itAspidorhynchidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1833