Gyracanthus

Gyracanthus is an extinct genus of acanthodian.

Gyracanthus

Skye McDavid · CC BY 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
GyracanthidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Acanthodii
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Acanthodii
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Acanthodii
Environment
freshwaterPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 70 million years on record.

The record covers at least 393.47 Mya to 323.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 419.62 Mya to 298.9 Mya.

Silurian — about 0 of 9 occurrencesDevonian — about 6 of 9 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 3 of 9 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 9 occurrences422–418 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences418–414 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences414–409 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences409–405 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences405–401 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences401–397 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences397–393 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences393–389 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences389–384 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences384–380 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences334–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330–326 Mya — about 1 occurrence326–322 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences322–317 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences317–313 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences313–309 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences309–305 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences305–301 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences301–296 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences393.47 Mya323.4 Mya422 Mya296 Mya

9 occurrences of Gyracanthus on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

9 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

5 formations

Catavi — 18.45°S, 64.80°WGydo — 33.30°S, 21.83°EBluefield — 39.57°N, 79.85°WGravel Point — 45.40°N, 84.92°WKush Yeilagh — 36.85°N, 55.35°E

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The named rock units Gyracanthus 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.

Gyracanthus and its relatives

Devonian

Where Gyracanthus and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

130 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Gyracanthus, 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

7 references

Each of the 9 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 Gyracanthus

Credit
Skye McDavid
Licence
CC BY 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 itGyracanthidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1836