Cephalaspis

Searched as Cephalaspis toombsi. The Paleobiology Database treats Cephalaspis as the accepted name.

Cephalaspis is a possibly monotypic genus of extinct osteostracan agnathan vertebrate. It was a trout-sized detritivorous fish that lived in the early Devonian.

Cephalaspis

Rod6807 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
CephalaspididaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chordata

Time the record covers

At most 6.6 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 419.62 Mya and 413.02 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Silurian — about 0 of 1 occurrenceDevonian — about 1 of 1 occurrenceDevonian420–420 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences420–419 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences419–419 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences419–419 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences419–419 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences419–418 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences418–418 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences418–418 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences418–418 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences418–417 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences417–417 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences417–417 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences417–417 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences417–416 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences416–416 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences416–416 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences416–416 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences416–415 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences415–415 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences415–415 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences415–415 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences415–414 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences414–414 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences414–414 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences414–414 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences414–413 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences413–413 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences413–413 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences420.1 Mya412.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Cephalaspis 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.

Found in

1 formation

Old Red Sandstone — 51.86°N, 2.73°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Cephalaspis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Cephalaspis and its relatives

Devonian

Where Cephalaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

257 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Cephalaspis, 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 content2

Picture of Cephalaspis

Credit
Rod6807
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itCephalaspididae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1835