Dickosteus threiplandi
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 threiplandi 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 threiplandi, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DickosteusPBDB
- 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.
4 occurrences of Dickosteus threiplandi 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
4 occurrences- Devonian100%
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
- Spital Flagstone Formation · Caithness Flagstone Group2
- Crosskirk Bay Formation1
- Ham-Scarfskerry Flagstone Formation · Upper Caithness Flagstone Group1
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The named rock units Dickosteus threiplandi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Dickosteus threiplandi and its relatives
DevonianWhere Dickosteus threiplandi and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Acanthodii2 sites
- Dipterus2 sites
- Dipterus valenciennesi2 sites
- Homosteus milleri2 sites
- Cheiracanthus1 site
- Glyptolepis1 site
- Gyroptychius agassizi1 site
- Homostius1 site
- Mesacanthus1 site
- Mesacanthus peachi1 site
- Mesacanthus pusillus1 site
- Osteolepis1 site
- Osteolepis panderi1 site
- Pterichthyodes1 site
- Thursius pholidotus1 site
- Trewinia magnifica1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Dickosteus threiplandi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 4 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 threiplandi 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 threiplandi, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
No 3D scan of Dickosteus threiplandi 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dickosteus”
- 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 itDickosteus through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miles and Westoll 1962