Dactylioceras
Searched as Dactylioceras (Orthodactylites) cf. tenuicostatum. The Paleobiology Database treats Dactylioceras as the accepted name.
Dactylioceras was a widespread genus of ammonites from the Lower Jurassic period, approximately 180 million years ago (mya).Like many other ammonites, the genus Dactylioceras is extremely important in biostratigraphy, being a key index fossil for identifying their region of the Jurassic. It had a nearly cosmopolitan distribution during the time it existed.

Kevmin · 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
- DactylioceratinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At most 10 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 192.9 Mya and 182.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Dactylioceras on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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
2 occurrences- Early Jurassic100%
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
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The named rock units Dactylioceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dactylioceras and its relatives
Early JurassicWhere Dactylioceras and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
275 taxa- Harpoceras39 sites
- Ammonoidea28 sites
- Parainoceramya matsumotoi22 sites
- Fuciniceras20 sites
- Lytoceras20 sites
- Harpoceras falciferum19 sites
- Ammonitina15 sites
- Hildaites murleyi14 sites
- Eleganticeras exaratum13 sites
- Phylloceras heterophyllum13 sites
- Protogrammoceras12 sites
- Calliphylloceras11 sites
- Hildoceras sublevisoni11 sites
- Nodicoeloceras11 sites
- Hildaites subserpentinus10 sites
- Hildoceras crassum10 sites
- Lioceratoides9 sites
- Nodicoeloceras crassoides9 sites
- Peronoceras9 sites
- Phylloceras9 sites
- Bositra buchi8 sites
- Hildaites8 sites
- Hildaites striatus8 sites
- Phymatoceras8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 297 sites for Dactylioceras, and this reads 240 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- Lower and Middle Jurassic Ammonoids of the Shemshak Group in Alborz, Iran and Their Palaeobiogeographical and Biostratigraphical Importance1
- Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian and Toarcian) Ammonites From Eastern Oregon and California1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Dactylioceras
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Kevmin
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itDactylioceratinae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hyatt 1867)