Onchosaurus

Onchosaurus is an extinct genus of sclerorhynchoid fish from the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found in the Cretaceous sediments of Egypt, Brazil, Congo, Morocco, France, Niger, Japan, Colombia, Chile, Peru and the United States.

Onchosaurus

Hectonichus · 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
SclerorhynchidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 21 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 20 of 21 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 21 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 21 occurrencesEocene102–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences94–92 Mya — about 1 occurrence92–91 Mya — about 1 occurrence91–89 Mya — about 2 occurrences89–87 Mya — about 2 occurrences87–85 Mya — about 2 occurrences85–83 Mya — about 3 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences80–78 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences78–76 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences74–72 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89.8 Mya56 Mya102 Mya47 Mya

21 occurrences of Onchosaurus on record, most of them in the Late 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

21 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

12 formations

Point Lookout — 35.20°N, 107.05°WQuseir — 25.62°N, 29.29°ESan Carlos — 30.87°N, 105.09°WTamayama — 37.05°N, 140.88°EVaugirard — 48.81°N, 2.24°ECraie de Meudon — 48.82°N, 2.23°EDukamaje — 15.47°N, 6.26°ENidaguila — 42.73°N, 3.94°WScaglia Rossa — 45.65°N, 10.94°EItombe — 8.29°S, 13.35°ERmah — 34.35°N, 38.00°ESan Carlos — 29.35°N, 105.65°W

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The named rock units Onchosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Onchosaurus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Onchosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

147 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Onchosaurus, 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 21 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 content1

Picture of Onchosaurus

Credit
Hectonichus
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Onchosaurus 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 itSclerorhynchidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gervais 1852