Alcoveria

Alcoveria is an extinct genus of mawsoniid coelacanth fish which lived during the Middle Triassic of Europe. It contains a single known species, A. brevis, known from a well preserved specimen from the Muschelkalk of Spain. It lived in a marine environment, being one of the few mawsoniids known to do so. Although it can be assigned to the Mawsoniidae, the lack of well-developed pleural libs precludes a finer taxonomic assignment. Prominent denticles are known on its fin rays.

Alcoveria

Konkordia · 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
CoelacanthidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelacanthidae
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Coelacanthidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At most 4.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 241.464 Mya and 237 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 3 of 3 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 0 of 3 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences242 Mya236.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Alcoveria on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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

3 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

1 formation

Muschelkalk — 41.27°N, 1.12°E

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

Alcoveria and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Alcoveria and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

57 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Alcoveria, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Alcoveria

Credit
Konkordia
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCoelacanthidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Beltan 1972