Acanthoceras

Acanthoceras is an extinct cephalopod genus belonging to the subclass Ammonoidea and family Acanthoceratidae that lived from the Albian to early Coniacian stages of the Cretaceous.

Acanthoceras

Hectonichus · 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
AcanthoceratinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 110.1 Mya to 93.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 89.8 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 149 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 148 of 149 occurrencesLate Cretaceous114–113 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences113–112 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences112–111 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences111–110 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences110–110 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences101–100 Mya — about 14 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 18 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 18 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 18 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 18 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 18 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 18 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 18 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 7 occurrences93–93 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences93–92 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences92–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences91–90 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences110.1 Mya93.9 Mya113.7 Mya89.3 Mya

149 occurrences of Acanthoceras 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

149 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

39 formations

Dakota Sandstone — 35.08°N, 106.65°WDakota Sandstone — 34.26°N, 106.68°WDakota Sandstone — 34.95°N, 107.83°WFrontier — 43.67°N, 106.63°WFrontier — 45.00°N, 107.53°WFrontier — 44.16°N, 106.78°WFrontier — 43.43°N, 103.55°WFrontier — 45.17°N, 107.72°WFrontier — 45.45°N, 107.62°WBeer Head Limestone — 51.08°N, 1.18°EBeer Head Limestone — 50.75°N, 2.33°WBeer Head Limestone — 50.83°N, 2.45°WBeer Head Limestone — 50.77°N, 2.57°WBeer Head Limestone — 50.91°N, 0.02°WWoodbine — 32.86°N, 97.06°WWoodbine — 32.77°N, 97.01°WWoodbine — 32.74°N, 97.11°WWoodbine — 33.66°N, 96.91°WWoodbine — 33.81°N, 96.83°WEagle Ford — 32.70°N, 97.45°WEagle Ford — 32.41°N, 97.21°WEagle Ford — 32.60°N, 97.07°WEagle Ford — 31.05°N, 97.47°WCraie de Rouen — 48.80°N, 0.00°ECraie de Rouen — 49.08°N, 0.50°ECraie de Rouen — 49.44°N, 1.09°ECraie Glauconieuse — 49.08°N, 0.50°EMoonkinu — 11.80°S, 130.40°EOdukpani — 5.22°N, 8.24°EOdukpani — 5.20°N, 8.25°EFerriby — 51.10°N, 1.30°EFerriby — 50.73°N, 0.20°EFerriby — 54.15°N, 0.23°WLower Chalk — 50.92°N, 2.23°WLower Chalk — 50.83°N, 2.60°WLower Chalk — 50.80°N, 2.67°WRomirón — 6.87°S, 78.15°WBathurst Island — 11.62°S, 130.38°EMancos Shale — 35.08°N, 107.38°WMancos Shale — 35.33°N, 105.90°WTheligny Chalk — 49.57°N, 0.97°EWest Melbury Marly Chalk — 51.08°N, 1.18°EWest Melbury Marly Chalk — 50.86°N, 0.07°EAitamir — 36.62°N, 60.07°EAitamir — 36.98°N, 59.68°ESanandinovo — 43.56°N, 24.98°EIeru — 5.13°S, 141.21°EIeru — 5.51°S, 141.88°EHibernian Greensands — 54.81°N, 5.78°WColeraine — 47.32°N, 93.28°WBrochterbeck — 52.22°N, 7.75°EBudden Canyon — 40.42°N, 122.53°WCouches du Freu — 46.01°N, 6.35°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Acanthoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 41 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Acanthoceras and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Acanthoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

503 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 124 sites for Acanthoceras, 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

53 references

Each of the 149 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. 41 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 content2

Picture of Acanthoceras

Credit
Hectonichus
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itAcanthoceratinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Neumayr 1875