Dinichthys
Dinichthys is an extinct monospecific genus of large marine arthrodire placoderm from the Late Devonian measuring around 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. Fossils were recovered from the Ohio Shale Formation along the Olentangy River in Delaware County, Ohio.

Apokryltaros · CC BY-SA 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
- DinichthyidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira
Time the record covers
At least 20 million years on record.
The record covers at least 385.9 Mya to 365.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 387.95 Mya to 358.86 Mya.
6 occurrences of Dinichthys 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
6 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
5 formations
- Manitoba Limestone Formation1
- Louisiana Limestone Formation1
- Ohio Shale Formation1
- Huron Shale Formation1
- Clymenia Limestone Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Dinichthys 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.
Dinichthys and its relatives
DevonianWhere Dinichthys and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
62 taxa- Alienacanthus malkowskii1 site
- Alveolites1 site
- Archaeogastropoda1 site
- Astraeospongium1 site
- Athyris1 site
- Athyris lamellosa1 site
- Atrypa1 site
- Atrypa reticularis1 site
- Aviculopecten1 site
- Bellerophontoidea1 site
- Brachydeirus1 site
- Brachydeirus grandis1 site
- Buechelia tyrrelli1 site
- Camarophorella1 site
- Chonetes1 site
- Cladodus1 site
- Conchodus elkneri1 site
- Cyathophyllum1 site
- Cyrtina hamiltonensis1 site
- Cyrtinia acutirostris1 site
- Cyrtoceras1 site
- Deveonema obrucevi1 site
- Diplocercides1 site
- Dipterus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Dinichthys, 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
6 references- Two new species of Dunkleosteus Lehman, 1956, from the Ohio Shale Formation (USA, Famennian) and the Kettle Point Formation (Canada, Upper Devonian), and a cladistic analysis of the Eubrachythoraci (Placodermi, Arthrodira)1
- End-Devonian extinction and a bottleneck in the early evolution of modern jawed vertebrates1
- Upper Devonian Fishes from the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland)1
- Stratigraphy and fauna of the Louisiana Limestone of Missouri1
- The Silurian and Devonian section of western Manitoba1
- On some remarkable fossil fishes discovered by Rev. H. Herzer in the black shale (Devonian) at Delaware, Ohio1
Each of the 6 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 Dinichthys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dinichthys 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dinichthys”
- 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 itDinichthyidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Newberry 1868