Discoserra pectinodon
Discoserra is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Mississippian of the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana. It is a member of the Guildayichthyiformes with a round body and a skull possessing primitive and modern traits. Discoserra is about 60 mm long. In 2006, Discoserra was hypothesized to be a stem neopterygian, although it has alternatively been placed in Cladistia along with other Guildayichthyiformes.

Gyik Toma (Tommy the paleobear) from Romania · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- DiscoserraPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At most 3.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 326.9 Mya and 323.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Discoserra pectinodon on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
7 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
1 formation
- Heath Formation · Big Snowy Group7
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The named rock units Discoserra pectinodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Discoserra pectinodon and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Discoserra pectinodon and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
63 taxa- Fubarichthyiformes7 sites
- Wendyichthys dicksoni6 sites
- Kalops monophrys4 sites
- Paratarrasius hibbardi4 sites
- Phanerosteon4 sites
- Aesopichthys erinaceus3 sites
- Beagiascus pulcherrimus3 sites
- Paphosiscus circulocaudus3 sites
- Tarrasiidae3 sites
- Archisymplectes rhothon2 sites
- Cyranorhis bergeraci2 sites
- Guildayichthys carnegiei2 sites
- Harpagofututor volsellorhinus2 sites
- Kalops2 sites
- Kalops diophrys2 sites
- Lineagruan judithi2 sites
- Lineagruan snowyi2 sites
- Rhadinichthys2 sites
- Actinopterygii1 site
- Allenypterus montanus1 site
- Animalia1 site
- Astreptoscolex anasillosus1 site
- Bealbonn rogaire1 site
- Belantsea montana1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Discoserra pectinodon, 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- The new Actinopterygian order Guildayichthyiformes from the Lower Carboniferous of Montana (USA)6
- Fish diversity of the Bear Gulch Limestone, Namurian, Lower Carboniferous of Montana, USA1
Each of the 7 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 Discoserra pectinodon
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Gyik Toma (Tommy the paleobear) from Romania
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Discoserra pectinodon 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, “Discoserra”
- 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 itDiscoserra through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lund 2000