Dickosteus

Dickosteus is an extinct genus of coccosteid arthrodire placoderm from the Late Eifelian to Early Givetian stages of the Middle Devonian period. Fossils are found in Orkney and Caithness, Scotland. It was a small placoderm with a total body length of 43.7 cm (17.2 in). It is one of the few placoderms for which complete bodies are known.

No picture of Dickosteus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Dickosteus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CoccosteidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira

Time the record covers

At most 5.7 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 387.95 Mya and 382.31 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Devonian — about 8 of 8 occurrencesDevonian388–388 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences388–388 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences388–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–386 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences386–385 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences385–384 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences384–383 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences383–382 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences382–382 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences388.4 Mya381.8 Mya

8 occurrences of Dickosteus 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

8 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

5 formations

Aruküla — 59.37°N, 25.08°EAruküla — 57.55°N, 25.28°ESpital Flagstone — 58.47°N, 3.42°WCrosskirk Bay — 57.61°N, 3.12°WHam-Scarfskerry Flagstone — 58.62°N, 3.59°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Dickosteus and its relatives

Devonian

Where Dickosteus and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Dickosteus, 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 8 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Dickosteus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Dickosteus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Dickosteus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itCoccosteidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miles and Westoll 1962