Ophiacantha

Ophiacantha

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
OphiacanthidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ophiacanthidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Ophiacanthidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ophiacanthidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Ophiuroidea

Time the record covers

At least 135 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 66 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 61.66 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 4 of 50 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 8 of 50 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 4 of 50 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 10 of 50 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 50 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 22 of 50 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 50 occurrences209–204 Mya — about 2 occurrences204–199 Mya — about 2 occurrences199–194 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences194–189 Mya — about 1 occurrence189–184 Mya — about 2 occurrences184–179 Mya — about 3 occurrences179–174 Mya — about 2 occurrences174–169 Mya — about 1 occurrence169–164 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences164–159 Mya — about 3 occurrences159–154 Mya — about 8 occurrences124–119 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences119–114 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences114–109 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences104–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–94 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences94–89 Mya — about 2 occurrences84–79 Mya — about 3 occurrences79–74 Mya — about 3 occurrences74–69 Mya — about 8 occurrences69–64 Mya — about 6 occurrences64–59 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences201.4 Mya66 Mya209 Mya59 Mya

50 occurrences of Ophiacantha on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

50 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

14 formations

White Chalk — 54.52°N, 13.63°EGulpen — 50.73°N, 5.67°EGulpen — 50.80°N, 5.67°EHumeralis Schichten — 47.47°N, 7.37°EMaastricht — 50.85°N, 5.70°ERenggeri-Ton — 46.83°N, 5.97°ERenggeri-Ton — 45.95°N, 5.55°ENayband — 31.15°N, 52.65°EGünsberg-Schichten — 47.33°N, 7.60°EEffinger Schichten — 47.26°N, 7.52°EVincentown — 39.93°N, 74.73°WBridport Sand — 50.71°N, 2.76°WPeruc-Korycany — 50.06°N, 15.10°EBìlà Hora — 49.83°N, 15.25°ETeplice — 50.45°N, 14.05°EPluto Glacier — 71.32°S, 68.31°W

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The named rock units Ophiacantha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ophiacantha and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

485 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Ophiacantha, 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

19 references

Each of the 50 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. 7 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 Ophiacantha

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Ophiacantha 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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itOphiacanthidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Müller and Troschel 1842