Asterolepis

Searched as Asterolepis alta. The Paleobiology Database treats Asterolepis as the accepted name.

Asterolepis is an extinct genus of antiarch placoderms from the Devonian of North and South America and Europe. They were heavily armored flat-headed benthic detritivores with distinctive jointed limb-like pectoral fins and hollow spine. The armor plate gives the Asterolepis a box-like shape. Its pectoral fins are also armored but the caudal and dorsal fin are not. The first fossils were named by M. Eichwald in 1840 after noticing star-like markings on the fossils.

Asterolepis

ДиБгд · 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
AsterolepididaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Placodermi
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Placodermi
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Placodermi

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 382.31 Mya and 372.15 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Devonian — about 1 of 1 occurrenceDevonian382–382 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences382–382 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences382–381 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences381–381 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences381–381 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences381–380 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences380–380 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences380–379 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences379–379 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences379–379 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences379–378 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences378–378 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences378–378 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences378–377 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences377–377 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences377–376 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences376–376 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences376–376 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences376–375 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences375–375 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences375–375 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences375–374 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences374–374 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences374–374 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences374–373 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences373–373 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences373–372 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences372–372 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences382.8 Mya371.6 Mya

1 occurrence of Asterolepis on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

1 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.

Asterolepis and its relatives

Devonian

Where Asterolepis and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

319 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 43 sites for Asterolepis, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Asterolepis

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

No 3D scan of Asterolepis was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itAsterolepididae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Eichwald 1840