Palaeoniscum

Palaeoniscum is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Middle to Late Permian period (Guadalupian-Lopingian) of England, Germany, Turkey, North America and Greenland, and possibly other regions. The genus was named Palaeoniscum in 1818 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville, but was later misspelled as Palaeoniscus by Blainville and other authors. Palaeoniscum belongs to the family Palaeoniscidae.

Palaeoniscum

Uncredited · 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
PalaeoniscidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Palaeonisciformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Palaeonisciformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Palaeonisciformes

Time the record covers

At least 99 million years on record.

The record covers at least 346.7 Mya to 247 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 241.464 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 67 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 8 of 67 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 57 of 67 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 67 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 67 occurrences361–357 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences357–353 Mya — about 1 occurrence353–349 Mya — about 1 occurrence349–345 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences337–333 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences333–329 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences325–321 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences321–316 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences316–312 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences312–308 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences308–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–300 Mya — about 1 occurrence300–296 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences296–292 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences292–288 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences288–284 Mya — about 1 occurrence284–280 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences280–276 Mya — about 2 occurrences276–272 Mya — about 4 occurrences272–268 Mya — about 4 occurrences268–264 Mya — about 9 occurrences264–259 Mya — about 4 occurrences259–255 Mya — about 23 occurrences255–251 Mya — about 7 occurrences247–243 Mya — about 1 occurrence243–239 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences346.7 Mya247 Mya361 Mya239 Mya

67 occurrences of Palaeoniscum on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

67 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

22 formations

Raisby — 54.69°N, 1.53°WRaisby — 54.63°N, 1.63°WRaisby — 54.85°N, 1.47°WRaisby — 55.05°N, 1.44°WRaisby — 54.62°N, 1.68°WKupferschiefer — 52.23°N, 7.96°EPechishchi — 55.78°N, 48.95°EPechishchi — 58.64°N, 49.85°E'First' — 55.03°N, 48.89°E'Second' — 55.03°N, 48.88°EBaitugan — 55.70°N, 51.74°EAlbert — 45.69°N, 65.43°WAlbert — 45.83°N, 65.05°WWhitehill — 31.47°S, 19.77°EWhitehill — 30.95°S, 19.43°EAshfield Shale — 33.92°S, 151.18°EGomaniibrik — 37.31°N, 43.54°EKama Region Third — 55.03°N, 48.88°EBelebey — 55.70°N, 51.74°EJoggins — 45.70°N, 64.45°WWilkie Brook ? — 45.83°N, 61.93°WLower Coal Measures — 55.73°N, 3.83°WLower Limestone ? — 55.73°N, 4.59°WPuertollano basin — 38.67°N, 4.11°WBaytugan — 56.01°N, 52.71°EKozhimrudnik — 65.75°N, 59.53°EKozhim Rudnik — 63.28°N, 51.96°EPadochov — 49.14°N, 16.40°EIntinsky — 66.08°N, 60.13°E

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The named rock units Palaeoniscum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeoniscum and its relatives

Permian

Where Palaeoniscum and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

118 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 43 sites for Palaeoniscum, 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

18 references

Each of the 67 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. 6 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 Palaeoniscum

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 Palaeoniscum 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 itPalaeoniscidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

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