Ophthalmothule cryostea

Ophthalmothule, was a cryptoclidid plesiosaur dating to the latest Volgian, found in the Slottsmøya Member Lagerstätte of the Agardhfjellet Formation in Spitsbergen. The type species is O. cryostea.

Ophthalmothule cryostea

Aubrey Jane Roberts · 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
OphthalmothulePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Plesiosauria

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 149.2 Mya and 137.05 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 1 occurrenceLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Cretaceous149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences141–140 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences140–140 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences140–139 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences139–139 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences139–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–138 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences138–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences137–137 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149.7 Mya136.6 Mya

1 occurrence of Ophthalmothule cryostea on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

1 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

1 formation

Agardhfjellet — 78.34°N, 16.05°E

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The named rock units Ophthalmothule cryostea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Ophthalmothule cryostea and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Ophthalmothule cryostea and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

No other named taxon is catalogued from that site.

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Ophthalmothule cryostea, and this reads all of them.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ophthalmothule cryostea

Credit
Aubrey Jane Roberts
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ophthalmothule cryostea 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 itOphthalmothule through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Roberts et al. 2020