Holocephali

Searched as Holocephali indet.. The Paleobiology Database treats Holocephali as the accepted name.

Holocephali is a subclass of cartilaginous fish. The only living holocephalans are the three families of chimaeras, but the group also includes many extinct members and was more diverse during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. The earliest known fossils of holocephalans date to the Middle Devonian, and the subclass likely reached its peak diversity during the following Carboniferous Period. Molecular clock studies suggest that holocephalans diverged from their closest relatives, elasmobranchs such as sharks and rays, during the Early Devonian or the Silurian Period.

Holocephali

Montanoceratops · 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
Also called
chimaeraPBDB
Sits inside
ChondrichthyesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 292 million years on record.

The record covers at least 303.7 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 307 Mya to 7.246 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 1 of 11 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 11 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 11 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 11 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 11 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 11 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 11 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 11 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 11 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 11 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 11 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 11 occurrences313–303 Mya — about 1 occurrence209–199 Mya — about 2 occurrences199–188 Mya — about 1 occurrence188–178 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences126–116 Mya — about 1 occurrence116–105 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences105–95 Mya — about 2 occurrences95–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–1.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences303.7 Mya11.63 Mya313 Mya1 Mya

11 occurrences of Holocephali on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. 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

11 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

Parana — 31.71°S, 60.55°WParana — 32.08°S, 60.49°WSables de Varennes — 47.07°N, 0.90°WKhodzhakul — 40.10°N, 65.80°EGrès de Infralias — 48.01°N, 5.53°EMattoon — 38.44°N, 87.86°WWoburn Sands — 52.03°N, 0.40°WSandgate — 51.24°N, 0.15°WExter — 52.56°N, 9.04°E

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The named rock units Holocephali 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.

Holocephali and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Holocephali and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

2,709 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 637 sites for Holocephali, and this reads 240 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

9 references

Each of the 11 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 Holocephali

Credit
Montanoceratops
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Holocephali was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itChondrichthyes through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bonaparte 1832)