Cladodus

Cladodus is an extinct genus of cartilaginous fishes in the family Ctenacanthidae. As the name implies, they are a type of cladodont, primitive sharks with teeth designed to snag fish and swallow them whole, instead of sawing off chunks to swallow.

Cladodus

NPS Photo · 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
CtenacanthidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ctenacanthiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ctenacanthiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ctenacanthiformes

Time the record covers

At least 138 million years on record.

The record covers at least 375.2 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 379 Mya to 227.3 Mya.

Devonian — about 2 of 34 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 17 of 34 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 12 of 34 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 34 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 34 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 3 of 34 occurrences382–377 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences377–372 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences372–366 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences366–361 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences361–356 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences356–350 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences350–345 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences345–340 Mya — about 1 occurrence340–335 Mya — about 2 occurrences335–329 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences329–324 Mya — about 2 occurrences324–319 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences319–314 Mya — about 2 occurrences314–308 Mya — about 4 occurrences308–303 Mya — about 2 occurrences303–298 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences298–293 Mya — about 4 occurrences293–287 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences287–282 Mya — about 1 occurrence277–272 Mya — about 1 occurrence272–266 Mya — about 2 occurrences266–261 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences261–256 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences256–251 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences240–235 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences235–230 Mya — about 2 occurrences230–224 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences375.2 Mya237 Mya382 Mya224 Mya

34 occurrences of Cladodus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

34 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

16 formations

Ichinotani — 36.22°N, 137.51°EForaker Limestone — 39.27°N, 96.44°WForaker Limestone — 39.38°N, 96.40°WForaker Limestone — 39.91°N, 95.91°WTiki — 23.90°N, 81.35°ETiki — 23.91°N, 81.33°EHeath — 46.67°N, 109.13°WHeath — 46.95°N, 108.96°WRed Eagle Limestone — 39.39°N, 96.40°WRed Eagle Limestone — 39.19°N, 96.56°WDiamond Peak — 39.54°N, 115.83°WDiamond Peak — 39.56°N, 115.83°WGrenola — 38.95°N, 96.40°WGrenola — 39.00°N, 96.60°WCopacabana — 16.30°S, 68.49°WWegener Halvo — 74.02°N, 21.84°WMinnelusa — 44.22°N, 103.41°WLawrence — 38.85°N, 95.17°WLinton — 40.94°N, 90.27°WGypsiferous Series — 78.49°N, 16.79°EKoh-e Giru — 34.30°N, 68.13°ELower Os’kin — 55.45°N, 90.06°EClymenia Limestone — 50.84°N, 20.39°E

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The named rock units Cladodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cladodus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Cladodus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

294 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Cladodus, 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

22 references

Each of the 34 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. 10 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 Cladodus

Credit
NPS Photo
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCtenacanthidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1843