Phorcynis

Phorcynis is an extinct genus of cartilaginous fish. The scales of Phorcynis have elongated crowns with a narrow median keel and short lateral folds and the teeth are asymmetrical, similar to those of Orectolobus.

Phorcynis

User:Haplochromis · 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
PhorcynidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Orectolobiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Orectolobiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Orectolobiformes

Time the record covers

At most 3.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 157.9 Mya and 154.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 2 of 2 occurrencesLate Jurassic158–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158.4 Mya154.3 Mya

2 occurrences of Phorcynis 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

2 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

Sot de Chera — 41.12°N, 0.83°W

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

Phorcynis and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Phorcynis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

8 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Phorcynis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 reference

Each of the 2 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. 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 Phorcynis

Credit
User:Haplochromis
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 itPhorcynidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thiollière 1854