Planohybodus
Planohybodus is an extinct genus of hybodont, known from the Middle Jurassic-Early Cretaceous (Bathonian-Barremian) of Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Fossils have been found in marine as well as freshwater environments. The genus contains 3 confirmed species, two of which were originally assigned to the genus Hybodus. Possible records have been reported from the Late Jurassic of Mexico, the Early Cretaceous of Brazil and the Late Cretaceous (Santonian) of North America, but these are unconfirmed. Planohybodus peterboroughensis is suggested to have reached lengths of 2–3 metres (6.6–9.8 ft). A specimen of the ammonite genus Orthaspidoceras from the Late Jurassic of France has been found with an embedded tooth of Planohybodus, suggesting that while the teeth of Planohybodus were adapted to tearing soft bodied prey, it would attack hard-shelled prey at least on occasion.

Léa Leuzinger, Gilles Cuny, Evgeny Popov, Jean-Paul Billon-Bruyat · CC BY 4.0 · 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
- HybodontinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 79 million years on record.
The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 85.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 66 Mya.
28 occurrences of Planohybodus 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
28 occurrencesThese 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
13 formations
- Durlston Formation · Purbeck Group9
- Wadhurst Clay Formation · Wealden Group2
- Jydegaard Formation · Nyker Group1
- Lulworth Formation · Purbeck Group1
- Missão Velha Formation · Vale do Carirí Group1
- Vega de Pas Formation1
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The named rock units Planohybodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Planohybodus and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Planohybodus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
237 taxa- Egertonodus basanus19 sites
- Parvodus parvidens16 sites
- Parvodus rugianus12 sites
- Hybodontiformes11 sites
- Crocodylia8 sites
- Lonchidion breve8 sites
- Lonchidion crenulatum6 sites
- Lonchidion inflexum6 sites
- Testudines6 sites
- Heterodontus5 sites
- Theropoda5 sites
- Batoidea4 sites
- Belemnobatis variabilis4 sites
- Hybodontidae4 sites
- Hybodus4 sites
- Polyacrodus brevicostatus4 sites
- Protolamna sokolovi4 sites
- Pycnodontiformes4 sites
- Sauropoda4 sites
- Amiiformes3 sites
- Chiloscyllium3 sites
- Eostriatolamia3 sites
- Lepidotes3 sites
- Ocloedus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Planohybodus, 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- Selachian faunas from the lowermost Purbeck Group of Dorset, southern England10
- Microvertebrates from the Lower Greensand Group (Lower Cretaceous) of Clophill, Bedfordshire, UK, and Nutfield, Surrey, UK4
- Contribution à l'étude des Sélaciens du Crétacé du Bassin de Paris. Découverte de quelques nouvelles espèces associées à une faune de type wealdien dans le Barrémien supérieur (Crétacé inférieur) des environs de Troyes (Aube)3
- A marine microvertebrate fauna from a temporary exposure of the Atherfield Clay Formation, Reigate, Surrey1
- The first turiasaurian sauropod of India reported from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) sediments of Jaisalmer Basin, Rajasthan, India1
- Faunal composition and paleoenvironment of the Arundel Clay (Potomac Formation; Early Cretaceous), Maryland, USA1
- Palaeontology of the Purbeck-type (Tithonian, Late Jurassic) bonebeds of Chassiron (Oléron Island, western France)1
- The hybodontiformes (Chondrichthyes: Elasmobranchii from the Missão Velha Formation (? Lower Cretaceous) of the Araripe Basin, north-east Brazil1
- Nuevos vertebrados fósiles de la Formación El Castellar en Gúdar, Teruel, España (Barremiense inferior, Cretácico Inferior) [New vertebrate fossils from the El Castellar Formation in Gúdar, Teruel, Spain (lower Barremian, Lower Cretaceous)]1
- Selachians from the Upper Cretaceous (Santonian) Hosta Tongue of the Point Lookout Sandstone, central New Mexico1
- A tiny maniraptoran dinosaur in the Lower Cretaceous Hastings Group: evidence from a new vertebrate-bearing locality in south-east England1
- New hybodont shark assemblage from the Early Cretaceous of the Basque-Cantabrian Basin1
Each of the 28 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 Planohybodus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Léa Leuzinger, Gilles Cuny, Evgeny Popov, Jean-Paul Billon-Bruyat
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Planohybodus 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.
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 itHybodontinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rees and Underwood 2008