Dactyloteuthis

Dactyloteuthis is a genus of belemnite, an extinct group of cephalopods.

Dactyloteuthis

via iDigBio · CC BY · via iDigBio. 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
MegateuthididaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Belemnitida
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 182.9 Mya and 170.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Jurassic — about 19 of 20 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 20 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic183–183 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences183–182 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences182–182 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences182–181 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences181–181 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences181–180 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences180–180 Mya — about 1 occurrence180–180 Mya — about 1 occurrence180–179 Mya — about 1 occurrence179–179 Mya — about 1 occurrence179–178 Mya — about 1 occurrence178–178 Mya — about 1 occurrence178–177 Mya — about 1 occurrence177–177 Mya — about 1 occurrence177–176 Mya — about 1 occurrence176–176 Mya — about 1 occurrence176–176 Mya — about 1 occurrence176–175 Mya — about 1 occurrence175–175 Mya — about 1 occurrence175–174 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences174–174 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences174–173 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences173–173 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences173–173 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences173–172 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences172–172 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences172–171 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences171–171 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183.4 Mya170.4 Mya

20 occurrences of Dactyloteuthis 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

20 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

3 formations

Marnes de Fontaneilles — 43.85°N, 3.12°EBraunjura alpha & Braunjura beta — 48.90°N, 7.67°EJurensismergel — 47.95°N, 7.82°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Dactyloteuthis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dactyloteuthis and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Dactyloteuthis and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

175 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Dactyloteuthis, 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

4 references

Each of the 20 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 Dactyloteuthis

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dactyloteuthis 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 itMegateuthididae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.