Ptychodus occidentalis

Ptychodus occidentalis

US Forest Service · 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
PtychodusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Lamniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Lamniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Lamniformes

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 100.5 Mya and 89.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 29 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 29 of 29 occurrencesLate Cretaceous101–100 Mya — about 1 occurrence100–100 Mya — about 2 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 2 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 2 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 2 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 2 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 2 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93–93 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences91–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences91–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences101 Mya89.3 Mya

29 occurrences of Ptychodus occidentalis 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

29 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

5 formations

Greenhorn Limestone — 37.22°N, 103.60°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.00°N, 98.92°WGreenhorn Limestone — 44.65°N, 103.58°WGreenhorn Limestone — 40.01°N, 97.17°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.46°N, 103.05°WGreenhorn Limestone — 40.75°N, 97.04°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.87°N, 98.51°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.94°N, 98.80°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.04°N, 98.99°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.78°N, 98.96°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.74°N, 99.04°WGreenhorn Limestone — 34.98°N, 103.41°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.65°N, 103.93°WGreenhorn — 43.29°N, 103.80°WGreenhorn — 44.72°N, 103.67°WGreenhorn — 33.89°N, 106.75°WBelle Fourche — 44.69°N, 103.68°WBelle Fourche — 43.44°N, 104.10°WBelle Fourche — 53.21°N, 103.52°WMancos Shale — 35.33°N, 105.90°W

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

Ptychodus occidentalis and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Ptychodus occidentalis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

96 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Ptychodus occidentalis, 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 29 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 Ptychodus occidentalis

Source
GBIF
Credit
US Forest Service
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ptychodus occidentalis 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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPtychodus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leidy 1868