Palaeobalistum

Palaeobalistum is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish which ranged from the Cretaceous to Eocene periods.

Palaeobalistum

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
NursalliinaePBDB
Diet
durophage, carnivorePBDB, for Pycnodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Pycnodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Pycnodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 57 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 119.57 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 9 of 20 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 9 of 20 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 20 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 20 occurrencesEocene121–119 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences119–116 Mya — about 1 occurrence116–114 Mya — about 1 occurrence114–111 Mya — about 2 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 2 occurrences109–106 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences106–104 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences104–101 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences101–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 2 occurrences94–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences91–89 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences86–84 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences84–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences113.2 Mya56 Mya121 Mya47 Mya

20 occurrences of Palaeobalistum on record, most of them in the Early 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

20 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

10 formations

Paluxy — 33.08°N, 97.64°WPaluxy — 33.50°N, 97.50°WPaluxy — 32.95°N, 97.69°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.69°N, 103.94°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.22°N, 103.60°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.65°N, 103.93°WTwin Mountains — 32.27°N, 97.91°WGlen Rose Limestone — 32.37°N, 97.69°WAntlers — 34.15°N, 95.82°WGramame — 7.25°S, 34.80°WWalnut Clay — 32.15°N, 97.58°WCarlile Shale — 42.74°N, 97.03°WDakota — 40.06°N, 97.34°WNiobrara — 38.79°N, 100.76°W

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The named rock units Palaeobalistum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeobalistum and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Palaeobalistum and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

510 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Palaeobalistum, 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

14 references

Each of the 20 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. 2 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 Palaeobalistum

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itNursalliinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blainville 1818