Heteroceras

Heteroceras is a genus of Lower Cretaceous heteromorph ammonites belonging to the ancyloceratoidean family, Heteroceratidae.

Heteroceras

via iDigBio · CC BY-SA · 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
HeteroceratidaePBDB
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 least 37 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 60 of 62 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 62 occurrencesLate Cretaceous127–125 Mya — about 11 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 25 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 23 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–118 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121.4 Mya83.6 Mya127 Mya71 Mya

62 occurrences of Heteroceras on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

62 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

9 formations

Sarcheshmah — 37.72°N, 56.32°ESarcheshmah — 37.72°N, 56.12°ESarcheshmah — 37.78°N, 56.33°EIshido — 36.07°N, 138.83°EMaiolica — 45.75°N, 9.48°ERio Mayer — 48.38°S, 71.80°WRio Mayer — 48.78°S, 72.38°WPierre Shale — 38.90°N, 101.75°WPierre Shale — 43.31°N, 104.22°WMakatini — 27.17°S, 32.17°ETesin-Hradiste — 49.55°N, 18.25°EDonji Milanovac — 44.53°N, 22.04°ESogukcam — 40.82°N, 42.15°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Heteroceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 33 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Heteroceras and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Heteroceras and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

115 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Heteroceras, 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

17 references

Each of the 62 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. 5 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 content2

Picture of Heteroceras

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

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itHeteroceratidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. d'Orbigny 1849