Gymnura

The butterfly rays are the rays forming the genus Gymnura and the family Gymnuridae. They are found in warm oceans worldwide, and occasionally in estuaries.

Gymnura

Tomas Willems & Hans Hillewaert · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
GymnuridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Myliobatiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Myliobatiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Myliobatiformes

Time the record covers

At least 88 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 46 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 46 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 46 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 28 of 46 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 46 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 9 of 46 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 46 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 46 occurrences102–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences62–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–55 Mya — about 2 occurrences55–52 Mya — about 2 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 4 occurrences45–42 Mya — about 5 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 4 occurrences39–35 Mya — about 8 occurrences35–32 Mya — about 4 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–18 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences18–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 2 occurrences12–8.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences8.4–5.0 Mya — about 3 occurrences5.0–1.7 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences93.9 Mya5.333 Mya102 Mya2 Mya

46 occurrences of Gymnura on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

46 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

25 formations

Birket Qarun — 29.28°N, 30.03°ESelsey — 50.80°N, 1.21°WGehannam — 29.33°N, 30.08°EMarnes de Miretrain — 43.69°N, 1.13°WEsbarrondadoiro — 38.17°N, 8.17°WEsbarrondadoiro — 38.11°N, 8.36°WEsbarrondadoiro — 39.30°N, 8.12°WCouche II — 32.85°N, 6.63°WCouche II — 32.81°N, 6.83°WCouche II — 32.65°N, 6.68°WMarnes de Donzacq — 43.75°N, 0.84°WDongen — 53.16°N, 6.22°ESternberg — 53.67°N, 11.82°EWadi Esh-Shallala — 31.57°N, 37.12°EMonterey — 33.71°N, 118.31°WAkli — 26.07°N, 71.27°ESamlat — 23.36°N, 16.03°WChandler Bridge — 33.03°N, 80.27°WRosarito Beach — 32.12°N, 116.80°WMidawara — 29.08°N, 30.12°EBlue Clay — 35.93°N, 14.34°ELaksarska Nova Ves — 48.59°N, 17.38°EFlorianer Schichten — 46.88°N, 15.36°EKuma — 45.10°N, 34.63°EBahariya — 28.43°N, 28.92°EMiretrain Marl — 43.57°N, 1.11°WKhuiala — 27.17°N, 70.50°EAlai Beds — 42.00°N, 76.00°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Gymnura has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gymnura and its relatives

Eocene

Where Gymnura and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

677 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Gymnura, 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

25 references

Each of the 46 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. 13 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 content3

Picture of Gymnura

Credit
Tomas Willems & Hans Hillewaert
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Echinosorex gymnura gymnura · AMNH:Mammals:M-216120

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itGymnuridae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Van Hasselt 1823