Trachyteuthis

Trachyteuthis is an extinct genus of octobrachian cephalopod comprising nine species with an almost global distribution, living from the Callovian to the Cenomanian age of the Mesozoic. While similar in appearance to modern squid or cuttlefish (Decapodiformes), this taxon is actually more closely related to the vampire squid.

Trachyteuthis

Dean Falk Schnabel · CC BY-SA 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
TrachyteuthididaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Octopoda
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 54 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 93.9 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 13 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 10 of 13 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 13 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 13 occurrencesLate Cretaceous163–161 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences161–158 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences156–153 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences153–151 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–146 Mya — about 3 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 2 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences121–118 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences102–100 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences100–97 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences97–95 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences95–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154.8 Mya100.5 Mya163 Mya93 Mya

13 occurrences of Trachyteuthis 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

13 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

6 formations

Kimmeridge Clay — 50.75°N, 2.33°WKimmeridge Clay — 54.15°N, 0.23°WLiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°EAmeghino — 64.47°S, 58.97°WSolnhofener Plattenkalk — 48.91°N, 11.38°EJagua — 22.62°N, 83.70°WSannine Limestone — 34.13°N, 35.75°E

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The named rock units Trachyteuthis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Trachyteuthis and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

76 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Trachyteuthis, 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

8 references

Each of the 13 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. 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 Trachyteuthis

Credit
Dean Falk Schnabel
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Trachyteuthis 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 itTrachyteuthididae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.