Pachyrhizodus minimus

Shimada, K. · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- PachyrhizodusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Crossognathiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Crossognathiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Crossognathiformes
Time the record covers
At least 10 million years on record.
The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 72.2 Mya.
31 occurrences of Pachyrhizodus minimus 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
31 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
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
7 formations
- Greenhorn Limestone Formation · Colorado Group18
- Carlile Shale Formation · Colorado Group3
- Niobrara Formation3
- Graneros Shale Formation2
- Pierre Shale Formation1
- Ashville Formation1
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The named rock units Pachyrhizodus minimus 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.
Pachyrhizodus minimus and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Pachyrhizodus minimus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
178 taxa- Cretoxyrhina mantelli21 sites
- Enchodus gladiolus20 sites
- Enchodus shumardi20 sites
- Plethodidae17 sites
- Squalicorax falcatus17 sites
- Cretalamna appendiculata16 sites
- Squalicorax curvatus16 sites
- Caturidae15 sites
- Cretomanta canadensis14 sites
- Protosphyraena14 sites
- Xiphactinus audax14 sites
- Microcarcharias saskatchewanensis12 sites
- Cenocarcharias tenuiplicatus10 sites
- Ptychodus anonymus10 sites
- Ptychodus whipplei10 sites
- Rhinobatos incertus10 sites
- Albulidae9 sites
- Archaeolamna kopingensis9 sites
- Ptychodus occidentalis9 sites
- Hadrodus8 sites
- Haimirichia amonensis8 sites
- Ptychodus decurrens8 sites
- Squalicorax pawpawensis8 sites
- Squalicorax7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Pachyrhizodus minimus, 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
24 references- Fossil fishes from the basal Greenhorn Limestone (Upper Cretaceous, Late Cenomanian) in Russell County, Kansas5
- Late Cretaceous marine vertebrates from the upper half of the Pfeifer Shale Member of the Greenhorn Limestone in central Kansas, USA, and comments on the geologically oldest mosasaur remains in Kansas3
- The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama, part VIII, the fishes2
- Fossil marine fishes from the middle part of the Jetmore Chalk (Upper Cretaceous: Lower Turonian) in Republic County, Kansas, USA1
- Fossil vertebrates from the middle of the Graneros Shale (Upper Cretaceous: Middle Cenomanian), Russell County, Kansas, USA1
- A new marine vertebrate assemblage from the Upper Cretaceous Lincoln Limestone, Comanche National Grassland, southeastern Colorado, USA, with comments on the vertebrate assemblages at or near the contact between the Graneros Shale and Greenhorn Limestone in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska1
- Fossil vertebrates from a unique marine bonebed of the Upper Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk, western Kansas, U.S.A.: new insights into the paleoecology of the Niobrara Formation1
- A new fossil vertebrate locality of the Jetmore Chalk Member of the Upper Cretaceous Greenhorn Limestone in north-central Kansas, U.S.A.1
- Fossil marine vertebrates from the Codell Sandstone Member (middle Turonian) of the Upper Cretaceous Carlile Shale in Jewell County, Kansas, USA1
- Fossil fishes from the Pfeifer Shale Member of the Upper Cretaceous Greenhorn Limestone in north-central Kansas, U.S.A.1
- Fossil marine vertebrates from the Blue Hill Shale Member (Middle Turonian) of the Upper Cretaceous Carlile Shale in northeastern Nebraska1
- Polycotylus latipinnis Cope (Plesiosauria, Polycotylidae), a nearly complete skeleton from the Niobrara Formation (Early Campanian) of southwestern South Dakota1
Each of the 31 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. 12 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 Pachyrhizodus minimus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Shimada, K.
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pachyrhizodus minimus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itPachyrhizodus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stewart 1899