Balatonites
Balatonites is a genus of extinct cephalopods belonging to the ceratitid family Balatonitidae. There are at least four known species: B. balatonicus, B. oyama, B. shoshonensis, and B. zitteli.

A. Swoboda, nach der Natur gezeichnet und lithographiert (drawn from nature and lithographed) · Public Domain · 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
- BalatonitidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Ceratitida
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Ceratitida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ceratitida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 7.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 248.6 Mya to 241.464 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 250.8 Mya to 227.3 Mya.
266 occurrences of Balatonites on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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
266 occurrences- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic99%
- Late Triassicunder 1%
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
32 formations
- Felsoörs Formation83
- Felsõörs Formation58
- Gutenstein Formation29
- Bulog Formation7
- Favret Formation6
- Angolo Formation3
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The named rock units Balatonites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 45 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Balatonites and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Balatonites and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
532 taxa- Norites42 sites
- Norites gondola31 sites
- Norites falcatus26 sites
- Beyrichites21 sites
- Acrochordiceras carolinae20 sites
- Coenothyris vulgaris14 sites
- Mentzelia mentzeli14 sites
- Costirhynchopsis mentzeli13 sites
- Proavites13 sites
- Angustothyris angustaeformis12 sites
- Volirhynchia tommasi12 sites
- Discoptychites11 sites
- Acrochordiceras10 sites
- Coenothyris kraffti10 sites
- Paraceratites trinodosus10 sites
- Proavites hueffeli10 sites
- Ptychites opulentus10 sites
- Punctospirella fragilis10 sites
- Schreyerites10 sites
- Koeveskallina koeveskalyensis9 sites
- Monophyllites wengensis9 sites
- Sulcatinella incrassata9 sites
- Favreticeras wallacei8 sites
- Tetractinella trigonella8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 155 sites for Balatonites, 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
40 references- The Pelsonian ammonoid fauna of the Balaton Highland140
- Die Cephalopoden der Mediterranen Triasprovinz20
- Die Cephalopodenfauna der Reiflinger Kalke. II. Abtheilung: Die Fauna des Fundortes “Rahnbauerkogel”14
- Ammonoids of the Shoshonensis Zone (Middle Anisian, Middle Triassic) from northwestern Nevada (USA)13
- Geologie der Umgebung von Sarajevo9
- Die Cephalopodenfauna der Reiflinger Kalke9
- Ammonoids of the middle/late Anisian boundary (Middle Triassic) and the transgression of the Prezzo Limestone in eastern Lombardy-Giudicarie (Italy)5
- Anisian ammonites from Gebze area (Kokaeli Peninsula, Turkey)5
- Noetlingites strombecki (Griepenkerl, 1860) and the stratigraphical position of the ammonite-faunas of Großreifling (Anisian, Styria/Austria)4
- The Triassic of Indochina Peninsula and its interregional correlation3
- New Aspects of Triassic Ammonoid Biostratigraphy, Paleoenvironments and Paleobiogeography in Southern Israel (Sepharadic Province)3
- Lithofacies palaeogeography and biostratigraphy of the lowermost horizons of the Middle Triassic Hallstatt Limestones (Argolis Peninsula, Greece)2
Each of the 266 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. 28 further references are not listed. 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 content1
Picture of Balatonites
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- A. Swoboda, nach der Natur gezeichnet und lithographiert (drawn from nature and lithographed)
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Balatonites 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Balatonites”
- 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 itBalatonitidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mojsisovics 1879