Pachyosteus bulla
Pachyosteus is an extinct monospecific genus of medium-sized selenosteid arthrodire placoderm known from the Upper Frasnian Kellwasserkalk facies of Late Devonian Bad Wildungen, Germany and from the Famennian portions of the Holy Cross Mountains of Poland. The type species Pachyosteus bulla has a broad skull about 7 to 10 centimetres long, a comparatively long median dorsal plate, and a short rostral plate that meets the pineal plate.

Apokryltaros · 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
- PachyosteusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira
Time the record covers
At most 3.8 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 379 Mya and 375.2 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Pachyosteus bulla on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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- Devonian100%
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.
Pachyosteus bulla and its relatives
DevonianWhere Pachyosteus bulla and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
26 taxa- Brachydeirus1 site
- Brachydeirus grandis1 site
- Conchodus elkneri1 site
- Deveonema obrucevi1 site
- Dinichthys1 site
- Diplocercides1 site
- Dipterus1 site
- Eastmanosteus1 site
- Eastmanosteus pustulosus1 site
- Erromanosteus sp.1 site
- Eustenopteron1 site
- Glyptolepis1 site
- Gyrolepis (Holoptychius) giganteus1 site
- Gyroplacosterus vialowi1 site
- Gyroplacosteus1 site
- Holodipterusus santacrucensis1 site
- Holonema1 site
- Holonema radiatum1 site
- Malerosteus gorizdroae1 site
- Moythomasia devonica1 site
- Onychodus1 site
- Oxyosteus1 site
- Plourdosteus1 site
- Plourdosteus grossi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Pachyosteus bulla, 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
1 referenceEach 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 Pachyosteus bulla
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pachyosteus bulla 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Pachyosteus”
- 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 itPachyosteus through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jaekel 1903