Edestidae

The Edestidae are a poorly known, extinct family of shark-like eugeneodontid holocephalid cartilaginous fish.

Edestidae

Hemiauchenia · 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
EdestoideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eugeneodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Eugeneodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eugeneodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 31 million years on record.

The record covers at least 315.2 Mya to 283.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 274.4 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 20 of 21 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 1 of 21 occurrencesPermian324–323 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences323–321 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences321–319 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences319–318 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences318–316 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences316–314 Mya — about 2 occurrences314–312 Mya — about 3 occurrences312–311 Mya — about 3 occurrences311–309 Mya — about 3 occurrences309–307 Mya — about 3 occurrences307–306 Mya — about 1 occurrence306–304 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences304–302 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences302–301 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences301–299 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences284–282 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences282–280 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences280–279 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences279–277 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences277–275 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences275–273 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences315.2 Mya283.3 Mya324 Mya273 Mya

21 occurrences of Edestidae 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

21 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

Minturn — 39.91°N, 106.71°WMinturn — 39.92°N, 106.78°WLinton — 39.72°N, 87.32°WSmithwick — 30.66°N, 99.32°WAltamont Limestone — 37.04°N, 95.53°WMinnelusa — 44.22°N, 103.41°WAtoka — 35.74°N, 95.25°WPeski — 55.25°N, 38.68°ELower Pedra de Fogo — 5.60°S, 42.08°W

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The named rock units Edestidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Edestidae and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Edestidae and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

50 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Edestidae, 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

14 references

Each of the 21 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. 2 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 Edestidae

Credit
Hemiauchenia
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
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 itEdestoidea through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jaekel 1899