Dorsetensia

Dorsetensia is a narrowly coiled discoidal ammonite from the early Middle Jurassic, lower Bajocian, belonging to the family Sonniniidae of the superfamily Hildoceratoidea. The inner whorls are ribbed or smooth, outer whorl is smooth. The outer rim (venter) is narrow, with a keel running along the middle. The umbilicus, the opening in the middle of the shell exposing inner whorls, is of moderate size with a sharp, sometimes undercut edge.

Dorsetensia

via iDigBio · CC BY · via iDigBio. 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
WitchelliinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At most 5.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 170.9 Mya and 165.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Jurassic — about 25 of 25 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic171–171 Mya — about 2 occurrences171–171 Mya — about 2 occurrences171–170 Mya — about 2 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 2 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 2 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 2 occurrences170–169 Mya — about 2 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 2 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 2 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 2 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 2 occurrences169–168 Mya — about 1 occurrence168–168 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences166–165 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences171.4 Mya164.8 Mya

25 occurrences of Dorsetensia on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

25 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

8 formations

Dhruma — 24.23°N, 46.58°EDhruma — 23.97°N, 45.17°EDhruma — 23.80°N, 46.17°EDhruma — 23.30°N, 46.33°EDhruma — 23.20°N, 46.33°EDhruma — 23.92°N, 46.03°EDhruma — 24.96°N, 45.69°EDhruma — 24.29°N, 46.14°EDhruma — 24.31°N, 46.16°E"Berching" — 49.23°N, 11.47°EZhamunaqu — 32.42°N, 91.75°EGuemgouma — 35.10°N, 9.71°EBedford Canyon — 33.79°N, 117.54°WAsientos — 25.97°S, 69.18°WMontandón — 25.97°S, 69.18°WLugoba — 6.36°S, 38.38°E

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The named rock units Dorsetensia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dorsetensia and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Dorsetensia and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

80 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Dorsetensia, 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

10 references

Each of the 25 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 Dorsetensia

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itWitchelliinae through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.