Acanthodes sulcatus

Agassiz, 1835 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/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
- AcanthodesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Acanthodii
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Acanthodii
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Acanthodii
Time the record covers
At most 9.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 339.9 Mya and 330.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Acanthodes sulcatus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
6 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
2 formations
- Gullane Formation · Strathclyde Group5
- Pathhead Formation · Calciferous sandstone Group1
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The named rock units Acanthodes sulcatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Acanthodes sulcatus and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Acanthodes sulcatus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
20 taxa- Elonichthys robisoni6 sites
- Rhadinichthys carinatus6 sites
- Cosmoptychius striatus5 sites
- Ctenacanthidae5 sites
- Nematoptychius greenocki5 sites
- Notacmon crenatus4 sites
- Gonatodus punctatus3 sites
- Rhadinichthys ornatissimus3 sites
- Elonichthys striatulus2 sites
- Rhadinichthys brevis2 sites
- Amphicentrum crassum1 site
- Cladodontidae1 site
- Eurynotus1 site
- Megalichthys1 site
- Mesopoma ardrossense1 site
- Rhadinoniscus wrighti1 site
- Rhizodus hibberti1 site
- Tristychius1 site
- Wardichthys cyclosoma1 site
- Watsonichthys pectinatus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Acanthodes sulcatus, 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
2 references- Recent discoveries of Carboniferous fishes in Edinburgh5
- The Fishes of the “Crangopsis Bed” at Ardross, Fifeshire1
Each of the 6 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 Acanthodes sulcatus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Agassiz, 1835
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Acanthodes sulcatus 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 itAcanthodes through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1835