Dictyophyllum
Dictyophyllum is an extinct genus of ferns belonging to the family Dipteridaceae. It is known from the Triassic and Jurassic periods. Like most other members of the family, it consists of multiple segments of pinnate leaflets connected to an arm, of which there were two per plant. The monophyly of the genus has been questioned, with a 2018 study suggested that the genus was polyphyletic as currently used.

Bodnar, Josefina; Drovandi, Juan; Morel, Eduardo; Ganuza, Daniel · CC BY 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
- DipteridaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta
Time the record covers
At least 111 million years on record.
The record covers at least 237 Mya to 125.77 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 100.5 Mya.
297 occurrences of Dictyophyllum on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. 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
297 occurrences- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic2%
- Late Triassic58%
- Early Jurassic24%
- Middle Jurassic12%
- Late Jurassic2%
- Early Cretaceous2%
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
91 formations
- Cape Stewart Formation19
- Steierdorf Formation7
- Novorayskaya Suite Formation7
- Saltwick Formation · Ravenscar Group5
- Paso Flores Formation4
- Amisan Formation4
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The named rock units Dictyophyllum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 67 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 126 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dictyophyllum and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Dictyophyllum and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
574 taxa- Cladophlebis149 sites
- Podozamites121 sites
- Neocalamites113 sites
- Pterophyllum109 sites
- Clathropteris106 sites
- Nilsonia104 sites
- Equisetites99 sites
- Taeniopteris93 sites
- Todites89 sites
- Phlebopteris65 sites
- Sphenobaiera63 sites
- Anomozamites61 sites
- Coniopteris56 sites
- Thaumatopteris56 sites
- Baiera54 sites
- Otozamites53 sites
- Pityophyllum50 sites
- Ctenis47 sites
- Czekanowskia47 sites
- Phoenicopsis47 sites
- Ptilophyllum42 sites
- Sagenopteris42 sites
- Ginkgo40 sites
- Elatocladus37 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 203 sites for Dictyophyllum, 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
109 references- The Stratigraphic Tables of Sichuan26
- Triassic Floras of Eurasia22
- Stratigraphic relations of the plant beds19
- Early Jurassic land flora of the Getic Nappe13
- The Stratigraphic Tables of Central South China10
- Mesozoic floral succession of Nagato Mountainland, western Japan8
- Regional Geology of Fujian Province7
- The Stratigraphic Tables of Yunnan7
- O srodkowoliasowym wieku flory z Chmielowa pod Ostrowcem i jej znaczeniu dla stratygrafii kontynentalnej jury [On the Middle Liassic age of the flora from Chmielow, near Ostrowiec (central Poland) and its significance for stratigraphy of the continental Jurassic]7
- Regional Geology of Jiangxi Province6
- Triassic Floras of Eurasia5
- Regional geology of Hubei Provence5
Each of the 297 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. 97 further references are not listed. 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 Dictyophyllum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Bodnar, Josefina; Drovandi, Juan; Morel, Eduardo; Ganuza, Daniel
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dictyophyllum 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 itDipteridaceae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lindley and Hutton 1834