Gymnuridae

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.

Gymnuridae

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
MyliobatoideiPBDB
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 109 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 109 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 11 of 109 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 83 of 109 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 109 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 9 of 109 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 109 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 109 occurrences102–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences72–69 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–59 Mya — about 4 occurrences59–55 Mya — about 7 occurrences55–52 Mya — about 11 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 11 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 11 occurrences45–42 Mya — about 11 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 12 occurrences39–35 Mya — about 19 occurrences35–32 Mya — about 9 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

109 occurrences of Gymnuridae 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

109 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

43 formations

Birket Qarun — 29.28°N, 30.03°EMatam — 15.32°N, 13.03°WMatam — 15.31°N, 13.09°WGehannam — 29.33°N, 30.08°ECouche II — 32.85°N, 6.63°WCouche II — 32.81°N, 6.83°WCouche II — 32.65°N, 6.68°WQasr el-Sagha — 29.32°N, 30.05°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.29°N, 29.99°EMarnes de Donzacq — 43.75°N, 0.84°WSubathu — 30.98°N, 76.98°ESubathu — 29.81°N, 78.61°ESubathu — 30.08°N, 78.34°ESelsey — 50.80°N, 1.21°WMarnes 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°WLisbon — 31.36°N, 86.52°WAkli — 26.07°N, 71.27°EJbel Tagount — 31.42°N, 6.31°WSamlat — 23.36°N, 16.03°WMidawara — 29.08°N, 30.12°EQasr El Sagha — 28.82°N, 29.14°ELondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°ELondon Clay — 50.78°N, 0.65°WGosport Sand — 31.50°N, 87.80°WGosport Sand — 31.59°N, 88.02°WBrussel Sand — 50.83°N, 4.37°EPondaung — 21.95°N, 94.53°EPondaung — 21.75°N, 94.62°EDongen — 53.16°N, 6.22°ESternberg — 53.67°N, 11.82°EWulagen — 39.69°N, 75.27°EWulagen — 39.60°N, 75.12°EEarnley — 51.08°N, 1.17°W

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The named rock units Gymnuridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gymnuridae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Gymnuridae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,261 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 80 sites for Gymnuridae, 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

48 references

Each of the 109 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. 36 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 Gymnuridae

Credit
Tomas Willems & Hans Hillewaert
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
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 itMyliobatoidei through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fowler 1934