Cosmacanthus

Cosmacanthus is an extinct genus of placoderms in the extinct family Groenlandaspididae that lived during the Late Devonian in Ireland, the UK, Russia and North America. It was named by Louis Agassiz in 1845.Names brought to synonymy†Cosmacanthus elegans, a synonym for †Nemacanthus elegans Evans, 1904 (elasmobranch)

Cosmacanthus

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
ArthrodiraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira

Time the record covers

At least 13 million years on record.

The record covers at least 372.15 Mya to 358.86 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 382.31 Mya to 323.4 Mya.

Devonian — about 2 of 5 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 3 of 5 occurrencesCarboniferous383–381 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences381–379 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences379–377 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences377–375 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences375–373 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences373–371 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences359–357 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences357–355 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences355–353 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences353–351 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences351–349 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences349–347 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences347–345 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences345–343 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences343–341 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences341–339 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences339–337 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences337–334 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences334–332 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences332–330 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences330–328 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences328–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–322 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences372.15 Mya358.86 Mya383 Mya322 Mya

5 occurrences of Cosmacanthus on record. 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

5 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 the same rock

56 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Cosmacanthus, 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

2 references

Each of the 5 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 content1

Picture of Cosmacanthus

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

No 3D scan of Cosmacanthus 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 itArthrodira through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1845